


call it your 2.0 (your rebirth, whatever)

by syntheseas



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: (well it's doing its best anyway), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Background - Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Background - Myra Kaspbrak, Background - Stan Uris/Patricia Blum Uris, Fix-It, M/M, The Turtle (IT) CAN Help Us, discussions of domestic abuse, the deadlights fucked richie up (but he'll be okay in the end)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21601135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syntheseas/pseuds/syntheseas
Summary: When Eddie died, everything had clicked into place. For once, he'd been brave enough. For a moment, Richie had gotten to hold him.Now Eddie's back. Some mysterious force has lifted him out of the ground and set him back on his feet, and he's going to have to learn to walk on his own for once. Meanwhile, Richie is still mourning, because he's always known better than to hope.Also featuring: the turtle's attempts at therapy, an ill-advised stint as a telephone operator, the most awkward coming out in history, the Lumberjacks Olympic Pine-a-Thon, and some George Romero shit.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 78
Kudos: 308





	1. we are all cinders

**Author's Note:**

> fic title and chapter titles taken from Vienna Teng's "Level Up"
> 
> basically, this fic is canon compliant through... the night they get back. eddie's dead, stan's dead, neibolt collapsed, they went to the quarry, but no one has left town yet. i did swipe eddie's supernaturally good sense of direction from the books.
> 
> content notes: a brief appearance by myra kaspbrak, canon-typical compulsory heterosexuality and all the shit that goes with it, doubting your perception of reality, dealing with your own death & the deaths of friends. if i've forgotten anything, let me know!

Eddie wakes up in his room.

It’s a shock for a couple of reasons, not least of which is that he wasn’t really expecting to wake up. A spike went through his fucking chest cavity, for god’s sake, that’s not the kind of thing you can just walk off.

He stares at the ceiling for a moment, trying to figure out how to feel. Pretty quickly he settles on irritation; it’s easy, familiar, and he’s fresh out of fear. Eddie’s gone through too much shit in the past few days to be scared anymore. He needs some time to recharge. So yeah. He’ll settle for pissed.

Why the fuck isn’t he in the hospital? He got stabbed in the face, to say nothing of the _spike through his chest cavity_ , and he’s covered in blood and lying on a musty hotel bed. He can practically feel the germs crawling into his open wounds.

Ew. _Ew._ Eddie shudders at the thought, and pushes himself up with... surprisingly less pain than he’d expected. He checks his chest, pulling aside the blood-soaked shirt and jacket.

Huh.

There’s a wound, of course there is, but it’s... scabbed over, or stitched up. Starting to scar. At least a few weeks old, if not more, and no sign of infection. Not that it can’t still get infected, obviously, but... how long has he been out? Who treated him, particularly without taking him to a hospital? Without getting him into fresh clothes?

What the fuck is going on?

Eddie stands and walks out into the hall. He needs to find someone. He needs to get some answers.

The hallway is empty. The bar is empty. The lobby is empty, and the clock at the reception desk reads 1:19am.

Everyone’s asleep, then. For a half second, Eddie considers leaving them to it, surprising them at breakfast. But then, he nearly died, and these assholes just left him covered in blood to wake up alone in a hotel room? They can lose a little sleep.

One of the doors along the hallway has light peeking out from under the crack. Richie’s still up, then.

Richie. The last time he saw Richie was...

_Richie, under him, shocked, covered in gouts of blood, Eddie’s blood. Richie, crouched next to him in the caverns, trying to talk him through the pain. Eddie, gasping out a secret, chickening out at the last second, selfishly trying for a joke so the last thing he saw would be Richie Tozier’s smile._

Eddie swallows. Then he knocks.

“Bill, I thought I told you to fuck off!” Richie shouts through the door. He sounds awful, throat hoarse — _strep, mono, flu_ — and, strangely, a little drunk.

“Rich, it’s me,” Eddie says, leaning his forehead against the door.

There’s a long moment of silence.

When it comes, Richie’s voice is dark. “Jesus, you’re a sick fucking bastard.”

“What? Richie, it’s me, Eddie.”

“Yeah, I just bet,” Richie snarls. Eddie tries the doorknob. It’s not locked, so he lets himself in.

A shoe flies at his head. Eddie ducks just in time.

“What the hell, asshole?!” Eddie snaps. Then he pauses, narrowing his eyes at Richie. “You look like shit.” Richie’s eyes are bloodshot, his clothes covered in dirt and blood and grime— the same clothes he’d been wearing in the sewer. He hasn’t changed. Eddie’s skin crawls just looking at him.

“Oh, you think you’re real fucking funny, huh?” Richie wings another shoe at him. It misses Eddie’s head, but only barely, only because Eddie jumps out of the way. “Too bad. Now I’m actually pissed off.”

“Richie, what the hell are you doing?” Eddie says, pressing himself against the wall. He skirts around the edge of the room, trying to keep away from Richie, who looks actually murderous, and scans the room in case there’s something he can use to defend himself. “Are you fucking possessed? Did you hit your head?” Eddie pauses, a nasty thought occurring to him. “Is this a bit? Because if it is, I swear to God Richie, I’m not in the fucking mood. I see why they had to write your material if this is what you came up with by yourself—”

There’s an open bottle on the nightstand. Richie snags it and throws it hard, and it smashes and splatters against the wall.

Eddie yelps. “Jesus _Christ_ , Richie—”

“Anyone else,” Richie says, circling, and Eddie edges away. He has no idea what’s going on, but the look in Richie’s eye is something to take seriously. He’s seen it before—once, years ago. _Welcome to the Losers Club, asshole!_ “Literally anyone fucking else, you might have gotten me with this shit, but not him. Take off his fucking face, asshole, I am not playing around, _I will kill you again_ , as many goddamn times as I have to—”

Richie lunges, hands outstretched. Eddie dives for the closet, wrestles the door open and throws himself inside, slamming it shut on himself. There’s a hard thud as Richie hits the door and bounces off.

“Get out here, right now,” Richie says, pounding on the door. “Get out here, you alien bitch, you better hope to God you kill me first because I’m gonna _rip you apart_ for doing that voice—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Eddie snaps, incredulous. He’s still not scared, exactly. Wary, for sure, and confused. But mostly, he’s teetering between irritated and genuinely, truly furious. His chest hurts and his face hurts and this closet is musty and awful. The metaphor isn’t lost on him, and this is how Richie Tozier sees fit to say hello. Of fucking course it is.

“Shut the fuck up,” Richie says, yanking on the knob. Eddie can hear him right through the door, like he’s inches away. He clings to the door, holds it shut with everything he’s got. “You think you’re so smart, worst goddamn fear— Bill!” he bellows, and Eddie can hear now, there are footsteps on the stairs and voices in the hallway. The bottle breaking must have woken everyone up. “Mike!”

He can hear the shitty creaky door swing open, hear the others pile into the room, and knows what they’re seeing: Richie’s room a mess of glass and alcohol, Richie yanking on a door that Eddie refuses to allow to open.

“Rich?” Bev says. “What’s going on?”

“It’s back,” Richie says, deadly serious, and punctuates the statement with a tug on the door. Eddie tugs right back. “We didn’t kill It in Neibolt, the fucking clown is back and It’s dressed as—”

“You think I’m the clown?!” Eddie says, so surprised that he lets go of the doorknob. The door swings wide open and Richie goes flying, landing hard on the bed. Everyone else flinches at the sight of Eddie, bloodstained and crouched in the closet.

“No shit, asshole,” Richie says, but he’s winded from the fall, and it takes a moment for him to sit up. If Eddie needs to lunge for the closet door again, he’ll have plenty of time.

“Yeah, right,” Eddie says, anger and nerves blurring together into adrenaline, the words tripping over themselves on the way out of his mouth. _Fuck_ Richie Tozier. “Right, of course, no, obviously, that’s why I locked myself in a closet trying to get away from you.” He can hear that now, but he’s not going to address it. He plows on. “Which, by the way, I don’t think this place has been vacuumed since before I was born, there are probably dust mites in here and I burned my goddamn inhaler—"

“You don’t need it, though,” Ben says, and Eddie rolls his eyes. He’s on a roll now, though, and he can’t stop.

“Oh, sure, because breathing in forty years of accumulated dead skin is so good for you, not to mention whatever the fuck was in those caverns, we probably all have black lung disease— oh, except for Richie and Bev, you two _smoke_ so you both just have straight-up lung cancer, my fucking mistake—“

There’s a choked-off sob from the bed. Bev puts a hand on Richie’s shoulder.

“Eddie?” Bill says carefully, taking a step forward. Putting himself between Eddie and the others. “It’s really…” He looks over his shoulder, back to the others. “I think it might actually be him.”

“Yeah, obviously,” Eddie says, as snippy as he’s ever been and maybe moreso. “I cannot believe you guys didn’t take me to the hospital, by the way, I hope I don’t have to be the one to tell you that being left to lie in a pool of your own blood on a fucking hotel bed is not sound medical procedure—“

“What?” Mike says.

Ben, voice soft, says, “Eddie, how did you get back?”

“What are you talking about?” Eddie blinks. “You guys brought me back, I woke up in my room.”

There’s another soft, broken noise from Richie. Eddie feels a pull in his chest. Richie has never sounded like that. Richie should _never_ sound like that, and Eddie said the words that made him make that noise.

Bev sits by Richie on the bed and puts a hand on his shoulder, gently rubbing circles on his slumped back.

“No,” Bill says, breaking the silence. “No, Eddie, we d— d—" He can’t even finish. His face crumples, and Eddie wonders in horror how many of his friends are going to cry tonight.

“But I’m _here_ ,” Eddie says, quickly before Bill can break down. He cannot deal with that right now, cannot watch his two oldest friends _(Stan is gone, and so was he, four became seven became six became five)_ cry over him. “I was in the cavern, and now I’m here, how could—"

Mike’s phone rings.

Eddie breaks off at the tinny, high pitched music, and they all turn to Mike.

“Excuse me,” says Mike, because he’s Mike and of course he does. Even perplexed and post-traumatic, Mike can remember his manners. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and puts it to his ear. “Yes, hello?”

They can all hear the loud, nearly-hysterical chatter on the other end of the line. Mike’s face goes slack.

“Mrs. Uris?” he says. Everyone’s heads shoot up.

More crackling, more crying from the caller — from _Mrs. Uris_. Mike looks at the phone, then at Eddie, then back to the phone.

“Yes, I— I understand, Mrs. Uris,” Mike says, trying to make himself heard. “Thank you for calling, could you— could you put him on the line, please?”

All the air goes out of the room.

Slowly, Eddie presses himself to his feet, stumbling out into the room. The others barely register it, all too busy watching Mike, and Eddie can’t say he blames them. There’s only one _him_ Patricia Uris could be calling about, and if he’s really on the line…

“Stan,” Mike says, sounding like he’s been punched in the gut. Eddie feels the same way, and not even because of his wound.

“Sp-speaker,” Bill says, eyes huge. “Mike, put him on sp-sp—“

Mike nods, and Stan’s voice crackles over the phone’s shitty speakers. “What the fuck did you guys do?”

* * *

So Stan is back. _Eddie’s_ back.

Stan’s wife texts photos, proof that he’s walking around. They call in, a staticky video chat on Ben's work tablet. Eddie shows them the scar tissue starting to cluster on his chest, a sight that ordinarily would take Richie’s upstairs brain entirely offline. (Seriously, who knew Eddie was jacked?) They make plans: Stan will fly out to Maine as soon as he can, and they’ll figure out what’s going on. Everything’s fine. Should be fine.

But Richie can’t seem to roll with it, not yet. As more of Derry filters back into his brain, more summers layering themselves in like photographs in an old projector, the thing that sticks in his mind is Bill.

Bill, and Georgie.

It’s not the same. He knows it’s not. Georgie was the cutest kid in the world, everyone’s baby brother, died tragically too young— you’d have to be a monster not to want him to be _missing_ instead of _dead_. Richie gets it, he really does, and he can’t blame Bill for trying to keep the faith, even to the point of fistfights. But, at the same time, Richie’s not stupid. He watched Bill rip himself apart trying to believe that the world would be kind enough to bring back someone he loved.

Watching Eddie FaceTiming Stan at the end of the bar, showing off his scar, energetic and lively now that he’s had a chance to change his clothes and get scrubbed, Richie refuses to make Bill’s mistakes.

“So,” Ben says, settling in behind the bar next to Richie.

“Holy shit, man, wear a bell,” Richie says, flinching.

Ben smiles in that quiet, earnest way, where you can tell he means it even if it doesn’t get all the way to his eyes. Then he looks at Richie for a long second, like there’s something he wants to say.

“Spit it out,” Richie says. He’s so fucking tired.

Ben still hesitates for a moment before asking, “Are you going to say anything to him?”

Aw, shit.

“Like what?” Richie says, pushing down the semi-instinctual panic response. It’s Ben. Ben’s— Ben is Ben. “Hey, how are you, sorry I threw a bottle of whiskey at you. I didn’t mean to miss, but I was mourning and wasted, so cut me some slack?”

“That’s not even a joke,” Ben says. “That’s just true.” He looks at Richie with a solemn face, like he knows how Richie feels, what he’s going through. Honestly, though, fuck Ben. Richie saw him locking lips with Beverly at the quarry. He doesn’t know shit.

Richie scrapes around inside himself, trying to find the will to play ball. He’s drunk—well, he’s hungover, and he’s tired, and he spent about three hours crying like an asshole. His head is pounding, but people expect a certain panache from someone who trades in professional self-deprecation, so he pastes on an expression of nonchalance. “Sorry, bud, I don’t know what you want me to say. Can’t really find it in me to bare my soul to a zombie, even one that’s house-trained. And the _your mom_ jokes fall a little flat now that the entire Kaspbrak family’s been buried at least once, you know?”

“Not the entire Kaspbrak family,” Ben says.

Right. The wife.

“Well, the love of my life and the bane of my existence, which are the only two that I really care about,” Richie says, the words sticking in his throat. The more he remembers of Derry, the more he thinks Sonia Kaspbrak might be his least favorite person in the world, Bowers and clowns included, so it’s technically not a lie. Still, though. He hopes to God Ben’s gotten stupider.

Judging by the look on his face – horribly, it might be _pity_ – Ben has not gotten stupider.

“It helps, Richie,” he says, shooting a look at the end of the bar, where Bev is crowding Eddie to get a look at the screen. She hooks her chin over Eddie’s shoulder and Eddie, who’s always been so picky about his personal bubble, lets her. Maybe getting stabbed, not once but twice, changes a guy. “To say something. It really does.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Richie says, because holy shit is he not in the mood. “Yeah, I’m taking advice from Mr. January Embers, reigning champion of the Lumberjacks Olympic Pine-a-thon and executive director of the Lonely Hearts Club twenty-seven years running.”

“I’m just saying—”

“Sorry, Mike and I can’t hear you over the sound of the perpetual singles’ night party we’re hosting.” Richie’s running his mouth, he knows, mixing metaphors the way only he can, but come on, Ben. Seriously. Take a hint. “Hope losing your position as chairman of the Bachelor Squad will be made up for by all the other positions you’re gonna get to try.”

Ben’s jaw sets.

“You know,” Richie says, because he’s an idiot. “In bed. With Bev.”

“I was just trying to help,” Ben says, and he even says it gently, because he’s Ben and he’s perfect. He closes his eyes, taking a deep cleansing breath. Figures. Ben probably does yoga or some shit. Richie idly thinks that if you averaged him and Ben, you might get like, one decently functional person. “You know you’ve been staring at him since we got down here.”

Richie did not know that.

Ben can apparently tell that from the look on Richie’s face, because he presses his lips together and reaches around Richie to nudge him away from the bottles behind the bar. “I’m cutting you off. You should talk to him.”

“I’m cutting _you_ off,” Richie mimics. Not his best material. Sue him, today has been a huge pile of hot flaming bullshit.

Ben just looks at him.

“Whatever, man,” Richie says, shaking his head. Fine. Sure. Richie can get through this without alcohol. _This_ is only his childhood crush, his— Eddie, miraculously undead and without a house dropped on him, probably walking and talking through the power of the clown.

Stan’s back too, but that feels even less real from the other end of a video chat. He’ll believe Stan’s alive when he gets cuffed over the head by a bitchy Jewish accountant, and not before.

In the meantime, Richie’s content to sit at the end of the bar and watch – not stare at, _watch_ – Eddie for signs of impending murderclown. Face a little too pale, teeth a little too sharp… maybe he doesn’t even realize what’s happening. Maybe he thinks he’s real. But if there’s anyone qualified to overanalyze Eddie’s face, it’s Richie Tozier, and Richie has always known better than to hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come jam with me on tumblr [here!](https://seven-syntheseas.tumblr.com)


	2. day number one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> specific content warnings for this chapter: eddie contemplating his own mortality, allusions to domestic abuse (Myra and, through implication, Tom)

“All right,” Bill says at breakfast, which happens around one in the afternoon because, like morons, they stayed up way too late celebrating Eddie and Stan’s sudden return. Eddie’s actually a little hungover, which is bizarre. The last time he had a hangover was two days ago, and the time before that was maybe two years ago. He doesn’t, as a rule, do much drinking. Between diet and treatment and medication, it’s just something that doesn’t happen back home.

“All right?” Richie mimics, mouth full of unidentifiable disgusting pastry mush.

“Stan and Patricia are trying to fly up here by tomorrow morning, so we can figure out what’s going on,” Bill continues, as if Richie had never interrupted. Would that everyone could ignore Richie so easily.

“We know what’s going on,” Richie says, spraying crumbs. Eddie shoots him the most withering look he can muster, and Richie grins back at him. “This is some George Romero shit.”

“I’m not a zombie, asshole,” Eddie snaps. “Do you know how disgusting that would be? I’d be decomposing, all my internal organs would be liquifying as we speak—”

“We’re having _breakfast_ ,” Bev says, but she’s grinning.

A shadow of something flits across Richie’s face. Then he smiles wider. “You’d probably look the same anyway, nothing new there.”

Eddie flips him off. “And technically, Bev, this is lunch at best, but fine, whatever, I certainly don’t want to talk about it.”

“Back on t-topic,” Bill says. “Eddie, do you remember anything happening?”

“I mean, I remember the caves,” Eddie says, trying to think. It’s hard to focus when Richie is sticking out his tongue, covered in the leftovers of what might be a muffin, immature and gross across the table. “And the ritual—” Mike winces. “Yeah, nice going, but whatever, I figured it out eventually.”

“Not to brag or anything,” Bev says. Ben’s eyes crinkle.

Oh, god, Bev and Ben. One of the developments Eddie missed while he was out. He’s happy for them, he is, but there’s something about that honeymoon feeling that’s always set him on edge. Ben’s already a marshmallow of a man, and now he’s going to be even gooier; meanwhile, Bev’s got a new doubles partner for every mock argument she wants to get into. It’s a desperately appealing idea, that easy teamwork, but Eddie’s never been very good at married life, and it stings to watch.

“So, yeah,” Eddie says, biting down on his recovering cheek to distract himself from the twist in his stomach. “The caves. And the ritual, and then Richie did the literal one thing everyone knew not to do and looked into the fucking deadlights—”

“How the fuck was I supposed to know It was deepthroating the secrets of the universe?” Richie says, throwing up his hands. “It was a spider, not a snake, did anyone seriously expect It to unhinge Its jaw and send me on the greatest trip I’ve had since I was twenty-six?”

“You saw something?” Bev sits up sharply. Ben puts a hand on her shoulder. “Richie.”

For just a moment, Richie freezes. It’s imperceptible, or it should be, but Eddie’s not stupid.

“Rich?” he says. It comes out a little too soft.

Richie’s eyes close for a moment. “Nothing too bad. I think It tried to bribe me.” He swings through tones, and Eddie can see him workshopping the joke even as he’s making it. “Bev got the doom and gloom shit, but up here?” He taps the side of his head and leers. “Happy endings all around, if you know what I mean.”

Eddie crosses his arms over his chest. “Enlighten us.”

“I was in Malibu,” Richie says, easy as anything, smile cracking wide. “Beach bunnies as far as the eye can see, and I had a body like one of those motherfuckers from Baywatch. People were lining up for a piece of this. Pretty tempting, I gotta say, I might have stayed if it weren’t for—” They can all see the moment his memory catches up with his mouth. “Uh.”

“Wow, sorry to deprive you,” Eddie says. He’s not.

“What did you really see, Richie?” Bill says, slowly and careful of every word.

“I mean it,” Richie says. “Happy endings for everyone. Ben and Bev were on some fucking yacht with their dog, Mike went to Florida, you were— I don’t know, man, you were in this office with a big window, you were writing. You looked happy. Your wife’s hot, by the way.”

Bill presses his lips together. Eddie knows that look. That’s the look where you kind of want to hit Richie, and you kind of want to laugh. “Thanks, man.”

“What about you?” Bev says. She looks a little less intense now that she knows Richie wasn’t watching them all die horribly, but not entirely. It’s the deadlights. Eddie can understand.

“Huh?”

“You weren’t seriously getting laid in Malibu, Richie, come on.”

“What does it matter?” Richie frowns, his eyes flicking over to Eddie. “It wasn’t real.”

“There could still be something in there, Richie,” Mike says, voice gentle. “Anything coming to mind?”

“Nope,” Richie says.

Ben looks at him, brow furrowing slightly in an expression Eddie can’t read.

“Fine, then what was I doing?” Mike and Bev aren’t going to get anywhere with this, and Eddie’s not interested in watching Richie sulk.

Richie opens his mouth. Then he closes it. “Uh,” he says finally. “What?”

“What was I doing, dumbass, it’s not that hard. What, was I already dead in your special vision of heaven on Earth?” Eddie snaps.

“ _No,_ ” Richie says, way too loudly. 

They all stare at him for a moment. 

He clears his throat. “I mean, obviously fucking not, I’m not a monster. You were, uh, you were in this hot tub full of hand sanitizer, and you were sucking face with the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen. Typical Eds, I guess.”

“Your mom’s dead, Richie, I don’t think that’s happening,” Eddie says, peeved for reasons he can’t even fully explain. Is that seriously what the universe thinks would make him happy? Is that what Richie thinks?

“I meant your wife, but that’s super weird that you mention it, because your mom was actually _my_ happy ending,” Richie says. He looks like himself again, and Eddie can’t quite tell what was missing. “Me and Mrs. K, riding bareback just like old times.”

“God, you’re disgusting,” Eddie says, shaking his head, just like old times.

Richie grins. It looks too harsh on him. “Whatever, man, it was all a lie anyway. Who cares?”

“Bev’s dreams came true,” Ben says quietly.

“It’s not gonna fucking happen, Haystack, forget about it,” Richie snaps.

“Beep beep, Richie,” Bev says, ice cold. “If Ben wants a yacht and a dog, we’re getting a yacht and a dog.”

Richie’s mouth hangs open uselessly for a moment, then he grins sheepishly. “Sorry, Ringwald. Wasn’t thinking that through, you go ahead and treat your trophy husband right.”

“Jesus, Richie,” Eddie says, something electric running through his veins. “Nice fucking going, just cause your happily ever after’s a state secret doesn’t mean you can go around kicking puppies. Did you plan that?”

It stings a little, actually, how curious he is, because— it’s stupid, and he can’t admit it, but he has no idea what his happy ending looks like. It should, he knows, involve Myra, but that feels incorrect for… multiple reasons. His job is fine, it’s a means to an end and always has been, but Eddie can’t imagine what he would spend his three weeks of vacation doing. Probably not sailing a yacht.

There was a moment, sitting in the caverns listening to his friends fight for their lives, where everything had felt right. Not good, but _right_. It had all made sense: he’d been brave, but not effective. He’d been strong, but not enough to survive. Every lie he’d told himself was stripped away, bleeding out in the caves, and there had been a terrible correctness in the idea that this was how Eddie Kaspbrak died: in love, in Derry, and in over his head. 

And he was happy, in that surety, to slip away. He’d saved Richie; he’d made the leper small. He’d done more, really, than a wheezing worrying boy who’d never truly left his mommy had any right to. He could be happy with that.

What had Richie seen, that went beyond that?

* * *

Dinner is takeout. Not Chinese. It’s from the crappy Mexican place across from the gas station, which is so barely a restaurant that it doesn’t even have tables, just the kitchen and options for takeout and delivery. Mike swears by it.

They all devour it, even Ben, and it’s a good thing Bill and Mike got extra because pretty much everyone has seconds. Richie has thirds. He fought a killer clown from outer space less than thirty-six hours ago, he’s entitled.

After dinner, Eddie ditches his stuff and goes to wash his hands, again, because twice before dinner wasn’t enough. Apparently Richie’s heart and dick are both firmly set on the most anal retentive man in America. Well, ambiguously-risen zombie pseudo-corpse, but there you go.

“Does the town seem different at all?” Bill asks, helping Mike clear the table.

Richie kicks his feet up onto the edge of the table in protest. He knows his role in the group, and it’s not to be helpful. Which is fine. He’s providing a little normalcy, a little levity. It’s a public service. Nothing’s real in this shitty hotel anyway.

Bill rolls his eyes at Richie. Mike shakes his head. “Nothing yet. A little more cheerful, but that could just be wishful thinking.”

“Once Stan gets here, maybe we can figure out what’s going on,” Bev says. “See if there’s any common points between him and Eddie.”

“You mean aside from waking up healed and teleported back to the last place they slept, like It was a video game and they didn’t win?” Richie says.

Bev rolls her eyes, too. Maybe Richie should start a tally, keep score against himself.

On the table, Eddie’s phone starts to ring. It’s not the standard ringtone, which means Eddie’s set this music especially for this person. The piece is almost innocuously jaunty, a cheerful little four-note tune, repeated over and over in a way that sets Richie’s teeth on edge. It’s not carnival music, not exactly, but it could be. Did Eddie set this before he remembered Derry?

The water from the bathroom down the hall stops running for a moment. “Leave it,” Eddie calls, a weird note in his voice.

Because Richie is himself, he grabs the phone, even as Bill gives him a look.

 _Myra_ , says the caller ID. Who the fuck is Myra?

Vaguely, he feels like the name’s been mentioned in passing. Eddie’s barely mentioned his job after he got ribbed about picking the most boring profession in the world, which means this is probably his wife.

His wife. Eddie’s wife.

Richie wasn’t really going to do it, but now he picks up the call. He has to know who the fuck is lucky enough to marry Eddie friggin’ Kaspbrak. Does she know how good she has it? Does she deserve him? God, she’s probably perfect, sensible and boring and exactly what he wants. Eddie, so meticulous about everything, probably did a cost-benefit risk analysis portfolio or whatever-the-fuck about the woman he was going to share his life with.

And, because he’s a little bit of a bastard like that, Richie puts on his most Jersey voice and says, loud enough to be heard from down the hall, “You’ve reached Lucky Lenny’s Luscious Emporium. We got toys, mags, and sundry stimulation, what are you lookin’ for?” He pitches his voice a little lower, a little smoother, and lays the accent on a little thicker: “It’s extra if you’re wantin’ one of the girls.” At the very least, this bitch better have a sense of humor. Eddie deserves that much.

There’s a crash from down the hall. It sounds an awful lot like Eddie running into a door.

A moment passes, just enough time for Richie to start wondering if this is, like, a spam caller faking their number. The others stare at him, caught somewhere between horror and amusement. The Richie Tozier experience, everybody.

Then, loud enough that everyone can hear, even without speakers, comes a breathy, nasal voice: “Eddie? Where’s Eddie? What have you done with my husband?!”

It echoes in Richie’s brain, sounding awful and familiar. From the looks on everyone else’s faces, they hear it too.

“Eddie, can you hear me?!” Myra wails. Richie freezes. Distantly, as if from much further away, he can hear Eddie scrambling to get down the hallway. “Eddie, what are they doing to you? Are you there? Eddie!”

The phone slips from Richie’s hand, bouncing onto the table, and it’s like a spell is broken. He scrambles for it, frantically hanging up the call before—

“Give me the phone,” Eddie says, skidding to a halt at the table. Richie looks up. Eddie’s short of breath and pale, all the blood gone out of his face. Richie can’t read his expression, but he knows it’s nothing good.

The dial tone beeps loudly for a moment. Then the phone is ringing again, the same four-note refrain.

Richie shoves the phone across the table. “Shit, man, I didn’t mean it. How was I supposed to know your wife couldn’t take a joke?” He knows it’s the wrong thing to say even as he’s saying it, but the setup is perfect and he’s never known how to stop. “I mean, last night she took my—”

“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up, Richie!” Eddie snatches the phone and whirls away, every movement tense, his whole body a line so sharp Richie could cut himself trying to touch it. His voice drops, soft and quiet. “Hi—yes, Myra, it’s me—I know, I’m sorry, I’m okay. I’m okay, I promise, my friend just took my phone, it was a joke. He wanted to play a prank on me. I’m fine, I promise, I haven’t been kidnapped, they’re not—no, they’re not forcing me to say—yes. Yes, I know. I know. I’m sorry. Yes, I—I’ve been taking them. Every day. When can I—two days? Okay. Okay, tomorrow. Yes. Okay.”

The sentences get shorter, fragmented, and it’s all wrong. When Eddie talks, words spill out of him, sentences stretching out and piling up until they snap off. Eddie can talk forever, if you let him. Richie has, maybe a little obsessively, catalogued how Eddie sounds, and he knows: this isn’t what Eddie is supposed to sound like.

But… it is. He’s heard Eddie talk this way before. He knows this tone, and it’s pulling up patterns in Richie’s brain that he doesn’t really want to look at. _Sorry, mommy._

He looks up at the others, and he knows they hear it too, in varying degrees. Less so Mike and Ben, who mostly look deeply uncomfortable and kind of upset, but Bev and Bill look shaken to the core. Bill, Richie knows, will recognize this. He’s known Eddie since they were six. Richie’s not entirely sure what Bev’s deal is, though he knows she’s gotten up close and personal with Mrs. Sonia Kaspbrak at least once, but the look on her face is nothing short of horrified.

“Richie,” she says, sounding faint, “if you ever try that shit again, we can’t be friends.”

“I didn’t—” Richie says, but he’s a standup comedian. He’s seen the world today, and he’s not a complete jackass. He knows better than to try _I didn’t mean to._ “I didn’t realize. That she was, uh.”

Bev shakes her head, wordless. Ben puts a careful hand on her shoulder, and Richie knows. God, does he know.

Eddie hangs up and comes back to the table. “I need to go pack,” he bites out. “See you guys.”

Wait.

What?

“Pack?” Richie says, pushing to his feet. “Come on, Eds, it was a joke, you can’t be fucking serious. Stan’s coming in the morning, you can’t— it’s like midnight, for God’s sake, you’re seriously gonna drive—”

“Yes, Richie, I am, because _you picked up_!” Eddie snaps, stepping in close. “And now I have to drive eight hours in the pitch fucking dark to go home and explain to my wife why I’ve been dodging her calls—”

“You’ve been _what—”_

“Shut up!” Eddie shoves him, hard, and for half a second Richie is thirteen and lovestruck, tussling on the floor of a clubhouse made from nothing but wood, dirt and Ben’s intelligence. He doesn’t really want to examine what that says about him. “Just shut the fuck up, for once in your goddamn life!”

Eddie is shaking, and his breathing is shallow and getting shallower, so unfortunately Richie can’t humor that request. “Hey, hey. Come on, man, it’s fine. You’re gonna—it’s gonna be fine, I promise.” He reaches out to pat Eddie’s cheek, the stabbed one, like he did in the caverns.

Eddie jerks back.

“Do not fucking touch me right now, Richie, I am so serious,” he says, his hands scrabbling through his pockets for the inhaler he left under Neibolt. “I need to go, now, I have to pack. God, I fucking—you really suck sometimes, Trashmouth, I can’t believe—” And instead of finishing the sentence, he’s gone, rushing up the stairs.

Richie stares after him.

“You deserved that,” Bill says, not unkindly.

“Yeah.” Richie runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, Bill, I kind of got that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come join me on tumblr as [seven-syntheseas!](https://seven-syntheseas.tumblr.com)


	3. the knock knock knock of your own heart as signal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings for this chapter: discussion of Eddie's marriage, allusions to compulsory heterosexuality,, references to Eddie's upbringing and his death, anxiety attacks, drowning imagery, internalized homophobia, mentions of/imagery of choking.
> 
> Eddie's extraordinary sense of direction is taken from the books.

Eddie can feel his hands shaking as he folds his clothes and stacks them neatly in one of his suitcases. He hasn’t had time to do laundry, and a lot of this stuff is bloodstained. It’ll all have to go in the wash when he gets back.

God, he can’t wait to explain that one to Myra.

Fucking _Richie._ Things had been going—not good, but they were going. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t in New York. He’d had a plan, of sorts, and then Richie had picked up the phone, just to be a dick.

Eddie has to go home. He doesn’t want to.

Intellectually, he knows that’s a red flag. The idea that he’d rather hide in Derry – _Derry,_ of all places, even knowing what it is and what it does to people – than go home to Myra says some shit that he doesn’t even want to think about.

Emotionally, everything’s tied up in knots, tangled in his mind. He made a promise to the Losers, in a grassy field under the sun, and he kept it. He made a promise to Myra, in church before a priest, and so far he’s kept that one too. He’d seen Bev sunbathing at the quarry and thought girls had cooties; he’d seen Myra lying in their bed and made excuses about germs. He’d seen Ben, all grown up in Jade of the Orient, and thought _hang on..._

He’d seen Richie, with tired eyes and a wicked smile and a shirt that looked like it hadn’t been washed in two years, and he’d known in an instant that he was the worst sort of coward.

There’s a knock on the door.

“I’m busy!” Eddie says. Maybe his friends will leave him alone. Maybe pigs will fly.

“It’s me, man,” Richie says, voice low, and Eddie flashes back to—god, was it really less than a day ago that he woke up alive on this crappy hotel bed?

He closes his eyes and drops another polo shirt on the stack. “Whatever.”

Richie opens the door, taking in the mess on the bed. “Jesus,” he says instead of _hello_ , because Richie was raised by wolves. “How long were you planning to stay?”

“It’s good to be prepared for anything,” Eddie says, but his heart’s not in the lecture. He’s too tired to be scared, and too shaky to be tired. He’s on autopilot, right now. He’s numb.

“Seriously, though, were you trying to run away from home?” Richie says.

Eddie feels a hot spark of _something_ run down his spine. For a moment, he can breathe. He draws himself up, turning to face Richie. “Do you ever think before running your mouth? For real, is it a condition or something?”

“A gift, maybe,” Richie says, like they’re thirteen and he’s the lookout.

“Get new material,” Eddie snaps. “And get out, I need to pack.”

“Yeah, no, I know.” Richie shrugs. “I figured I’d watch, maybe offer some live commentary. Not like I can make it worse, am I right?”

“You’ll find a way,” Eddie says. He doesn’t put any real bite into it, though, and he’s not entirely sure why. Maybe he’s too tired to fight, although that’s never stopped him before. Maybe it’s a thank-you. Richie’s an idiot, and a jackass, and a self-centered prick. He’s loud, and brash, and he’s never in his life treated Eddie like he was fragile.

There’s a moment of quiet. Richie doesn’t step in, just hovers in the doorway. After another second, he says, “I didn’t know you were screening her calls. I wouldn’t have done it if I did.”

Eddie turns back to his pile of clothes and shakes out a pair of chinos. He tries his best to keep his voice level as he says, “I was going to tell her my phone broke. That I hadn’t had a chance to replace it.”

“Shit, Eds,” Richie says. “And you’re still going back?”

“I have to.” Eddie rests his hand on the zipper of his open suitcase, then grips it tight so the metal teeth dig into his palm. The sparks of pain are tiny compared to the events of the past few days. They ground him anyway. “She’s my wife.”

“You can get a divorce,” Richie says. He almost sounds hesitant. “That’s what they’re for.”

“I promised her,” Eddie says. “Marriage vows, Richie, they’re kind of a big deal.”

“Due process, or whatever,” Richie says. The floor shifts and creaks as he crosses it, coming to Eddie’s side. “You know you’re an adult, right? You’re allowed to leave.”

“I’m not taking relationship advice from Masturbators Anonymous,” Eddie says. Every once in a while he manages to forget that Richie has a girlfriend in L.A., waiting for him.

Richie grins. “I knew you watched my stuff.”

Eddie wants to pick a fight, wants to wind himself up to shouting pitch just to get some of his energy back. Instead he sags and sits on the bed. “I keep thinking…”

“Stop the presses,” Richie says, then winces. Gently, he sits next to Eddie. “Uh, force of habit. Keep talking.”

Eddie shoots him a wry look, his mouth twisting skeptically, but he keeps going. “I keep thinking about Myra. And Derry. And my mom.”

Richie opens his mouth.

“One fucking word, Rich, and I will throw you out the window,” Eddie says, and he’s surprised by how much better he feels in that moment. Arguing with Richie is easy. Light. It’s a little fucked up, and a little magic.

Richie shuts his mouth.

“I was thinking about that stuff,” Eddie says. He closes his eyes. “Myra’s never lied to me like that. Like my mom did.”

“Yeah, the _gazebos_.”

“Shut up, I was a kid. Anyway. Myra’s—she’s a lot of things. But she’s never… nothing like that. She couldn’t, the laws surrounding pharmacies in New York are really stringent, actually—” Eddie’s getting off topic. “That’s not the point. She worries.”

“Tons of people worry about you, dude,” Richie says. Eddie can hear him swallow. “That’s not, like, the basis for a marriage.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, mouth dry. Slowly, he opens his eyes. “I’m kind of wondering if my mom was right.”

“Hey, no, what the fuck—” Richie starts.

“I don’t mean—not, like, not about the pills, that was definitely fucked, but—” Eddie scrambles to explain. “It’s Derry, look what just happened to us and tell me you’d raise a kid here. Ever. Disappearance rate was six times the national average, remember what Ben said?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Richie says. His hands are balled into fists. “Fuck your mom, dude, and not even like—not even _fuck your mom_ , I’m serious. Your house was a nightmare, I got chills every time I came over.”

“She wanted to keep me safe,” Eddie says. He hates that he has to defend it. “She thought Derry was going to kill me every time I left the house, and… she wasn’t wrong.”

“Yeah, but not _disease.”_ Richie shakes his head. “That wasn’t what—you were a human shish kebab, not—” His mouth flaps uselessly for a moment. “What are we even talking about, right now? Cause I gotta say, getting hosed down with your blood like the world’s least sexy wet T-shirt contest was not exactly in my top ten moments. Can we skip it?”

“I just—shut up, I’m just trying to say,” Eddie starts, and then thinks. What the fuck is he trying to say? “I’m just saying, it’s fucked up, man. But, I don’t know, Myra cares. And she’s never lied. And I promised her, I _married_ her, and I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, Rich. I would literally rather move into Mike’s conspiracy theorist murder attic than go home, and that’s fucked up, I know it is, I just—I don’t even know, you know?”

“Well,” Richie says, looking vaguely sick. If he pukes again, Eddie will kill him. He squinches his eyes shut. “I mean. If you promised.”

“Yeah, I did, and I—”

“Wait.” Suddenly, Richie’s eyes fly open. “Did you write your own vows?”

“What?” Eddie stares at him.

“Like, you wrote your speeches and stuff, but the promises part—to have and to hold, whatever, all that shit—did you rewrite that? I know some New-Age-y hippie couples do.”

Eddie shakes his head. “Myra wanted to go traditional.” Eddie hadn’t _not_ wanted to go traditional. Mostly, he’d been along for the ride, so what Myra wanted, she got.

Richie starts to laugh. His smile looks weird, pinched around the edges, but it’s genuine when he chokes out, “Well, there you go. Problem solved.”

“Could you be a little less vague?”

“You have—you promised,” Richie says, laughing more, high and hysterical. “You promised your wife. Til death do us part.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, feeling lightheaded. _Til death do us part._ Like it’s that easy. And Richie’s on his bed, laughing like he’s seen the clown, almost crying, and Eddie’s pretty sure he’s having an out of body experience or something, because everything is perfect and horrible at the same time. He died. He _died._ And now he’s back, and it’s… how is it so simple? _Til death do us part._ That was the promise, and he kept it, and now…

What comes next, he has no idea.

* * *

What comes next, is sleep.

In one room, Eddie zips up his suitcases and puts them on the floor, eyes the bed suspiciously but finally crawls in. It’s late, and he’ll need to be fresh in the morning when Stan arrives, so they can figure out why they’re no longer dead. Eddie’s sense of direction is impeccable and always has been, but he has the strange sense that he’s walking unguided for the first time.

In another, Richie pushes his glasses up his face with the palms of his heels and decides not to brush his teeth before he goes to bed. It’s probably gross, and it would definitely get him yelled at by certain other people, but he needs to be unconscious and any step that delays that isn’t welcome. Even with no one to talk to, his mind won’t stop running, full of the possibility of speech.

They both dream.

Eddie is in a maze, underwater. For a moment, he worries about pressure sickness and hypothermia; then, for another moment, he worries about drowning. Then, on a strange and inexplicable whim, he opens his mouth and sucks in a breath so full and deep it shocks his lungs to realize their capacity.

He takes a step forward. Then another. He’s not at the entrance, he knows, nor at the center; he’s at the midpoint on a journey, and since this is a maze, not a labyrinth, his path has options that may take him off course. To test every path will take too long. He will have to trust his instincts.

In the past, Eddie has gotten lost in many ways, but never physically. Dropped in the forest, blindfolded and dizzy, with no light to navigate by, Eddie could find his way home—find his way back. To Mommy, to Myra, to Derry. A point is set, and he knows the way there.

Eddie mentally sets his course for the center of the maze, and takes another step forward. Then he stops.

For the first time, he doesn’t know the way.

Richie is in a recording booth, sitting at the mic. It’s not an unfamiliar situation; he’s voiced a couple characters for Pixar and been on the radio more than a few times. For a moment Richie’s shoulders relax, comforted by the warm still air and the quiet created by the foam-lined walls.

He gets up from the chair and goes to poke around. He’s always been curious about these setups, and for some reason, he doesn’t feel like he’s going to be stopped. There are speakers on the floor, in case someone at the board wants to talk to him. Which is wrong, studios use talkback headphones, but Richie knows intuitively that’s what they’re for. The mic stand rises from the floor like a tree, and the cable coming out the back trails back down. The whole thing creates a one-branched weeping willow that touches the floor, where the cable is taped down so no one will trip on it. The other end plugs into a small panel on the wall, and that’s the end of it.

It’s a nice setup. Not the fanciest he’s ever seen (shoutout to that Pixar studio) but definitely better than most of the radio booths. He tries the door. It’s locked.

There’s a tapping on the window—shit, right, there’s a window—that divides the booth from the board, the performers from the technicians. A faceless man with large headphones shakes his finger at Richie. _No no no._ Richie’s here to do a job, not to wander around, and Richie would balk, but for the way the scrutiny of the faceless man makes his hands start to shake. That mic is live. That man can hear everything Richie does in this cramped, stuffy closet of a space.

Richie sits back at his seat, and the man nods. The window blacks out. Are they supposed to do that? Richie can’t remember. The air is stifling, suddenly, and the silence feels oppressive. He looks at the stand in front of him, at the script he’s supposed to read, and sees: _You guys have all heard me talk about my girlfriend. I know, I know, you must be as sick of hearing about her as I am._

Okay, then. Same old fare. Nothing Richie hasn’t said a thousand times onstage, and once he reads it, maybe they’ll let him leave. He opens his mouth, and no words come out.

Richie is gripped by a wave of panic. He’s lost his voice.

In the maze, movement is slow, stymied by the force of water. Eddie turns blindly down one corridor, then another. Left, then right, then left again. A dead end. Another dead end. He’s lost.

The watery darkness obscures the path more than a few feet in any direction. There’s no indication of where he came from, or where he’s going, and Eddie can feel himself starting to shake, his breath becoming shallow again. The water presses in, holding him in place, and he can’t see to stay on course.

This is not supposed to happen to him. This has never happened to him. The center of the maze should be a lodestar, a point by which he can make his way, and yet he’s stumbling blind, deep underwater, every movement sluggish.

He needs a new anchor point, something that will cut through the gloom of the maze. For a moment, Eddie remembers Richie, loud and bright. Maybe Richie could be his North Star. 

Then his lungs clench, and he chokes up water, thinking unbidden of Richie doing a Voice. Quiet, breathy, nasal, chilling. _Eddie-bear, where are you? Come to me, I just want to take care of you. Tell me you love me, Eddie._

Richie wouldn’t ask that. He would never. But even if he never led Eddie down that path, it still feels much, much too easy for Eddie to follow.

No. Richie might be a guiding light – _you’re braver than you think_ – but he cannot point the way.

Eddie stops walking for a moment, slowing his breath, forcing it to deepen as he reacclimates to the flow of water in and out of his lungs. It’s strange to breathe like this. It’s almost a matter of belief, and belief is such a fragile thing. Eddie holds tight to the idea that he will not drown, not here. His lungs will obey him in water as they never seem to in air, even as he is lost, even as he is afraid. He wants to run, wants to breathe, and he knows that he can do it.

He wants to turn left. He does. He wants to turn right. He does. Without a map, without a plan, he must trust his feet and his lungs to take him where he needs to go. Where he wants to go.

Richie flaps his mouth uselessly in the dim light of the booth. He knows the words. He’s _saying_ the words. Why isn’t it working? Why can’t he speak? There’s a rap-tap-tapping on the window, and he knows the technician is waiting for his voice.

He can feel, suddenly, with surety, more people behind the little window. People are watching him, waiting to see what he’ll say. What Trashmouth Tozier will spew next, about his nonexistent girlfriend and his crippling masturbation addiction and his pathetic, lonely life. People are watching, and he can’t speak.

The lights in the booth start to wink out, one by one, until there’s just a single bulb lit overhead, like a spotlight. It’s like being onstage again, with the bright stage lights blinding him, an entire audience waiting for him unseen. He tries for a Voice, because when in doubt, he’s always succeeded at playing someone else. But instead, a pressure rises in his throat, and Richie thinks for a moment he’s going to vomit.

It’s not puke. It’s a sob. The only sounds he can make are shaky, wet, whimpering noises. His eyes are streaming behind his glasses, and his chest is heaving, and once again the technician taps the glass. These people are here to see him, to watch him, and he can’t put on the show everyone’s waiting for.

The lights overhead—three lights now, not one, all burning orange—start to swirl, and Richie feels his skin prickle with fear. On the stand, the script stares back at him. _You guys have all heard me talk about my girlfriend,_ it says, and helplessly he reaches out and turns the page. It reads the same. Every page is the same, over and over, and he can’t get the words out.

“I can’t,” he chokes out, and speech is such a shock and a relief that he has to keep going. “It’s not true.”

Silence in the booth. Silence from the technician. Silence from the audience, waiting behind the window.

“It’s not true,” Richie says hysterically, because if he stops talking he may never start again. “I don’t have a girlfriend, it’s not true. I didn’t write this. That’s not me. I’m—I’m gay, I like guys, it’s not true.”

Eddie walks. It’s slow going, step by step, pushing through the thick walls of water, and he can feel frustration building. He’s trying. He wants to _go,_ he wants to move. He pushes, hard and insistent, he _wants_ it—

And then the tension snaps like the string of a paddleball, and there’s nothing holding him back.

Eddie runs, faster and faster, with no idea where he’s going, until his blood is rushing and his heart is pounding, right and left and left again, wherever he wants without fear of what he might find. He can breathe. He can run. The compass in his mind is spinning free, without a destination except the next place he wants to go.

And then, suddenly, he’s at the center. He’s found it, following his own feet. And swimming around the chamber at the center of the maze, is an enormous turtle. It blinks.

Words bubble up out of Richie, and every time he tries to lie, his throat closes up, so he sticks to the truth. It’s strange, almost freeing, to say so much so quickly, and the words come out so smoothly that he doesn’t even worry about the people watching behind the window.

Some of the truth is frivolous – _when Bill and I were ten we stole candy from the video rental place and Bill felt so bad he stuck money in the return slot and I’ve never told a soul –_ and some of it isn’t. _I made out with a friend in college and when it was over I threw up on his bag and never talked to him again._ All true, good and bad and big and small, and over and over Richie avoids one name until finally he says _I’ve been in love with Eddie Kaspbrak for thirty years and didn’t even remember I was lying about it._

The talkback speakers crackle to life and Richie falls silent. “That was good, man, that was real good. Where you been hiding this shit? Take five and then we can keep going, okay?” The window lights up again, and the technician is there, with six faceless but familiar figures, people Richie would recognize in his bones. He can feel them smiling deep, even without mouths to smile, and suddenly the blockage in his throat is cleared. The technician is not faceless anymore. It’s a turtle. It blinks.

They look at the turtle, and the turtle looks back at them. _Have a little faith_ , it says. And then they wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come join me on tumblr at [seven-syntheseas!](https://seven-syntheseas.tumblr.com)


	4. let your faith die

Richie is awake, sort of, but if someone put a gun to his head and asked he might tell them otherwise. He’d woken up once early in the morning, feeling both stressed and relieved, like he’d run a gauntlet and come out the other side. Instead of dwelling on that, he had, of course, immediately rolled over and gone back to sleep.

After getting up properly, he’d slumped downstairs and dropped himself on one of the couches in the lobby, where he’d made grabby hands at the nearest humanoid shape until it promised coffee. The judicious application of glasses had revealed that figure to be Bill.

They gather, one by one, around the couches and the bar. Richie is first, which surprises even himself, followed by Bill and then Mike. Ben and Bev come in a little late, with more coffee and pastries. A breakfast date, then. They are, honestly, kind of adorable.

Eddie is late.

Eddie is really, really late, which is weird. Richie knows that Eddie likes to sleep, and he doesn’t want to think about why that’s a memory that Derry gave back, but he also knows that Eddie works for an insurance firm in New York and probably hasn’t been late to anything ever in the last decade.

“Okay,” he says finally. “Eduardo’s gonna murder whoever wakes him up. Nosegoes for not it.” He taps his nose immediately and is gratified when the others follow suit. He might be an immature bastard, but he’s in good company.

Ben, poor sucker, reacts last, but he takes it with good humor and ascends the stairs.

“Any word from Stan?” Mike asks, looking around.

Bill shakes his head. Bev does too, and Richie follows suit. It’s not, like, mandatory that Stan check in, but Richie was kind of expecting normal human updates. If it was Eddie, they’d probably be getting texts at fifteen minute intervals, riddled with swears and dictated hands-free to avoid distracted driving. Stan isn’t neurotic, but he is fastidious, so a little _Hey, we’re at the airport_ or _Hey, the plane landed_ doesn’t seem like too much to expect.

It’s a weird, uncomfortable, prickly feeling, the idea that something’s wrong with Stan. But it’s fine. It’s all fine, they’re fine, Richie’s fine, and Stan’s probably changed a lot in three decades. Maybe he’s less grown-up at forty than he was at fourteen. It’s fine.

And then Ben jogs down the stairs, face pale, and says, “Eddie’s missing.”

Richie stops breathing. He’s gripped by a weird dual sense of panic and reassurance.

It’s not _good_ reassurance, but it is exactly what he was expecting. The other shoe has dropped, and the horrible certainty he’s been trying to disbelieve was real. Eddie’s not back. It was all a lie. Stan was a lie too, a trick of the airwaves like those creepy shows Mrs. K used to watch. The clown’s alive. They still have to kill him or die trying. But instead of having to think about that, Richie can focus on the fact that he doesn’t have to wait for the inevitable anymore.

Bill is on his feet already, sprinting for the stairs. Maybe he thinks Ben made a mistake. Maybe he thinks Eddie’s hiding in the shower again, for whatever fucked-up reason. Bev and Mike are saying something, but Richie can’t hear them. His ears are ringing. He knew it. He was right.

The front door flies open. Everyone turns.

“Shit, shit—” Eddie scrambles in, red-faced and out of breath, in jogging gear and (Richie wants to laugh and cry at the same time) a fanny pack. “Shit, I’m back, I lost track of time, did I miss Stan?”

“Yeah, he turned around and left because you weren’t here to kiss him hello,” Richie says on autopilot, taking a deep, rattling breath. His brain is making a sound like a ring of keys jangling.

“Ha ha, hilarious, where is he?”

“Not here yet,” Bev says. “And no texts, either. Where were you?” There’s a very thin edge in her voice – not mean, not angry, more like she’s desperately tamping down the same fear Richie’s still trying to put away himself.

Eddie stops. Blinks. Looks down at himself. “Oh. Uh. I went to the bank.”

“You _ran._ To the _bank,”_ Richie says, and Eddie bristles. He doesn’t mean to sound like an asshole, but that’s kind of how it comes out, probably because he’s still trying to reconcile the emotional rollercoaster of the past two minutes.

“Yeah, I fucking ran, what’s your point? We all knew that shit was psychosomatic.”

“Big word for such a little guy, Eds,” Richie says. Ah, yeah, there he is, there’s the patented Tozier Trashmouth starting to come back online. “Sure you know what it means?”

Eddie’s eyes narrow. “Go fuck yourself, I had an errand to run.”

“We panicked a little,” Mike says gently, “when Ben said you weren’t here.”

Eddie opens his mouth. Then he closes it again. “Oh,” he says finally, like it never fucking occurred to him that maybe disappearing thirty-six hours after his mysterious and unexplained resurrection might freak a couple people out, _maybe._

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” Richie says. “For a minute I thought you ditched and went back to New York, man, what the hell.” It’s not true— New York hadn’t even crossed his mind until he’d opened his mouth and realized he couldn’t exactly admit that he’s been waiting for some chestburster alien to rip Eddie open and drag him away since he got back. Now, though, that’s a new thought, and one that’s almost equally horrible.

“Well, I didn’t,” Eddie says, and he almost looks shy. “I just— I woke up and thought I would go for a run. I had an errand.”

“You said,” Richie says, because he’s Richie and he can’t not say _something_. “That all?”

Eddie stares at all of them for a moment, shifting on his feet. He starts to say something, then cuts himself off before he can get a word out, fiddling with the zipper on his fanny pack like he’s a kid again instead of a full grown man. Finally, he manages, “I had a really weird dream. Good. But weird.”

“Me too,” Bev says. “There was a… turtle?” Mike and Ben nod slowly.

The four of them look at each other. Then they look at Richie.

Okay. Four out of seven is a coincidence, maybe. It’s basically fifty-fifty. But Richie remembers his dream, not just bits and pieces but the whole thing, and five out of seven is a little too much to just dismiss out of hand.

“Hey, Bill?” Richie calls up the stairs.

Bill comes out, jogging down to the landing.

“First, Eddie’s back, so quit freaking out,” Richie continues, and looks around at the others. “And second, you didn’t happen to have a freaky dream last night, did you? About a turtle, maybe?”

Wide-eyed, Bill looks from him to Bev, and then to Mike. Ben meets Bill’s gaze with a shy shrug, and Eddie nods at him. “Yeah,” Bill says finally. “Yeah, I— _did.”_ He clamps down a little too hard on the last word, but he gets it out, so he’s fine.

It’s really Bill’s confirmation that does it. Bev’s got those prophetic nightmare dreams, and now that he’s stared down the esophagus of everything unholy, Richie’s probably a candidate for that too. Mike’s done so much research on this shit Richie would be surprised if he _didn’t_ dream about it. Ben’s probably just tuned into whatever frequency Bev gives off, and Eddie— he’s probably not tuned into anyone’s frequency, but he’s also a walking pharmacy with a panic disorder. Pill-fueled stress dreams aren’t outside the realm of possibility. But if this happened to Bill, too… no getting around it.

“Clown shit?” Richie says.

Bev shakes her head. “They weren’t bad dreams. Mine wasn’t, anyway.”

“They weren’t good dreams, either,” Richie counters, because he remembers bolting up at 4:30 in the morning, sweating bullets and choking on his own tongue. All the waves of kumbaya, love and tolerance from the universe and all that shit, don’t make up for the panic of losing something that intrinsic.

“They were something,” Mike says grimly. “But we should wait for Stan before we find out what.”

* * *

Stan does show up eventually. He and his wife — _Patricia, call me Patty_ — apparently had the trip from hell getting here, though. A delayed flight, a layover during a storm in Tennessee, and a popped tire on the way from the airport, plus Patty checked their phone chargers by mistake and the airline lost their bags during the stop, so their batteries died. Eddie catches a lot of shit for the way he packs, but he’s feeling pretty vindicated right now. Try and catch him forgetting a charger. Not gonna happen.

Patty is… great, honestly. She settles in fast, cracking a joke about Richie’s shirt and instantly winning Bev’s loyalty. She’s a closet architecture geek and she travels a lot for her job, so she and Ben and Mike manage to kill a half hour debating landmarks.

It’s still weird, though, to see Stan slot himself against her side so effortlessly. Now that Eddie’s looking for it, he can see everything he was doing wrong with Myra, all the little pieces that were missing. It’s kind of reassuring. He made the right call this morning.

On that note. “So.” Eddie puts a hand on Stan’s arm, cutting into some argument with Richie about the Atlanta entertainment scene. “Are we going to talk about it?” he asks.

Instantly, the mood in the room plummets.

“I just, you know,” Eddie says. “You guys came here for a reason, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who wants to get the fuck out of town, like, today. So.” He takes his hand back and puts it over the lump of scar tissue on his chest. If he presses down, he can feel the texture of it through his shirt. “Maybe we should.”

“Eddie, wait.” Bill shakes his head, eyes widening meaningfully at Patty. “We might not want to…”

“She knows, Bill,” Stan says. “I woke up next to her in the middle of the night. She knows.”

“And?” Mike looks at her, hesitant.

Patty bites her lip. “I mean. It’s kind of insane. Impossible, actually.” She huffs out a weak little laugh, sliding a hand up and down Stan’s arm. “But, uh, I’m getting a lot of experience with the impossible lately.” She looks around the room, though, like the clown might jump out from behind a couch any moment.

“We killed It,” Bill reassures her. “It’s gone.”

Richie snorts.

Eddie looks over at him. “Something funny?”

“No, yeah, we totally killed It,” Richie says in a horrible tone that makes Eddie feel sick. “Super dead, guys.”

“Richie,” Bev says, warning.

“I’m just saying!” Richie raises his hands. “We thought these guys were dead too, and _something_ brought them back.”

“We already went over this,” Eddie says, heat rising in his chest. Richie’s still on this? “Literally the first fucking night, dickwad, I am not the clown.”

“You _think_ you’re not the clown,” Richie says, and he’s not even yelling. There’s a terrible, cold certainty in his voice. “Or you’re a really good fucking actor, but come on, Eds, what else could it be?”

“No.” Stan tips his chin, looking Richie square in the eye. “It can’t reach Atlanta. It can’t leave Derry or It would have gotten all of us a long time ago. If it were just Eddie, maybe, but I’m back too.”

Richie swallows, suddenly pale. “No offense, Stanley, but none of us have met your wife. We don’t know her from shit, and she’s the only one who would have lived the whole thing.”

“It’s okay, man.” Ben holds out a hand to pat Richie’s shoulder. Rock-solid, dependable Ben.

Richie backs away. Eddie can see him shaking. “The thing with the phones? Little convenient, Stan, don’t you think? She packs the chargers by accident, she drives you here and the tire pops— hell, she’s the one who called us in the first place, maybe she’s been—“

“Beep beep, Richie,” Stan says, face pale with rage, angrier than Eddie’s ever seen him. “That’s my wife you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, your wife, but who are you?!” There are tears streaming down Richie’s face. Eddie’s not sure he’s even noticed. “Are you _you_? How would you even know a thing like that?”

“Hey,” Eddie says, because he can’t not. It’s the first night all over again, Richie crying in a way that tilts the whole world off axis. “Hey, Rich, it’s okay. It’s fine. It’s— it’s— just fucking breathe for a minute, okay, don’t freak out, you’re going to be fine.” Eddie knows breathing exercises, not that they’ve ever helped him, but maybe they’ll work for Richie. He takes Richie by the arm. For a moment he remembers being thirteen, in the garage, with a monster in the projector and his lungs closing up and Richie grabbing him close. “Just focus on me, Richie. Dumbass. Please, come on. Just me, okay?”

“You’re not real,” Richie croaks, pulling back until he hits the wall. Eddie stays with him every step of the way.

“I am.” Eddie grips him a little tighter, hoping the force will reassure him. Bev steps in closer, and Eddie waves her off.

“Richie?” Stan sounds far away, like he’s had the wind knocked out of him.

“Is he— what’s wrong?” Patty says, and Eddie can hear Ben murmur something to her.

“I’m real, Richie, I’m real and I’m right here,” Eddie promises, gripping his shoulders and looking him in the eye. He thinks— well. Richie might be past logic at this point, but it’s worth a try. “If I wasn’t real, I couldn’t leave, right? Once you saw me, you’d see me all the time. I left this morning. I went to the bank.”

Richie’s breathing slows the tiniest amount. “Yeah. Yeah, you— yeah.”

“Yeah,” Eddie nods. “Went for a run along the river — which looks like crap, by the way, it smells disgusting — and then went to the bank. There’s paperwork, there’s proof.”

“What’d you do?” Richie relaxes just another increment, and the wild look in his eyes starts to recede.

“Took half the money out of our joint savings account,” Eddie says honestly, and hears Bev whistle out a breath. This wasn’t exactly how he planned to tell everyone, but he also wasn’t expecting to see Richie cry today. “I’m going to leave Myra, you were right.”

Richie turns grey.

“Shit,” he says, sagging against the wall, closing his eyes tight. “Shit, fuck, no, this isn’t happening. You’re not real, just fucking kill me already, I can’t do this again.”

“Richie?” Eddie’s heart kicks up into his throat, and he grabs Richie tighter, holding him up. “Richie, what the fuck?”

“Please, just get it over with, I can’t go through this again, I can’t—” Richie sobs. Then he gags, and Eddie doesn’t even have a moment to react before Richie doubles over and throws up directly on Eddie’s chest.

Patty yelps. Richie collapses. Eddie does nothing but hold him, because this is the second time in three days someone has puked on him, only this time the urge to run to the shower and scrub off a layer of skin is tangled with the urge to throw his arms around Richie and never let go. There is no universe in which Richie is allowed to cry like this.

He hears Bev say, “Ben,” and then a pair of strong arms is pulling Richie away from him.

“No,” Eddie says. His voice cracks.

“You can’t, Eddie,” Bev says. “Not you. Or Stan. It’s— it’s something from the deadlights, it has to be me.”

The worst part is knowing that she’s right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for this chapter: panic attacks, general post-clown hypervigilance


	5. bring your wonder

Richie wakes up flat on his back on top of the covers of his bed. His head is pounding. He shifts to sit up slightly.

“Hey.” Bev is perched on the edge of the bed. She tilts her head at him.

“Ugh,” Richie says, pushing himself up the rest of the way.

“How are you feeling?”

“Depends.” Richie shrugs. “How long was I out? If I feel like this and I slept for a day, I got off easy. Ten minutes? I want a refund, more sleep please.”

“It was five, you baby,” Bev says, smiling. “Seriously, though, Richie. How are you doing?”

Richie’s still a little groggy, but he tries to piece together what’s making her look at him so gently. Stan had shown up with Patty, and then—

Oh.

Oh, _fuck._

“Two mental breakdowns in a week,” Richie says, grinning so wide it hurts. “And people say I’m not Hollywood material.”

“You definitely put on a show.” Bev nods. Richie could kiss her for that. Then she pauses, and the smile falls away.

“It’s what I do, Ringwald,” Richie says, before she can ask whatever question she’s waiting to spring. “Sorry, no encores.”

Bev snorts, tracing the ugly pattern of the comforter with one finger.

“Did Haystack carry me all the way up here?” Richie says. “‘Cause you got a good deal on that man. Better be careful, or someone else’s gonna snag him.” As if they could. Bev’s name spent twenty-seven years in Ben’s wallet. Even he didn’t spend twenty-seven years carrying around— a used-up inhaler, or something.

“Mike and Bill helped,” Bev says, eyes crinkling. “They were supposed to make sure Ben didn’t bump your head on anything, but I told them we might not notice a difference.”

“Ouch.” Richie puts a hand over his heart. He knows this dance. “A mortal wound, Beverly Marsh.”

“Mm-hmm,” Bev says. Then, before Richie can derail the conversation again, she darts in with, “You know I get it. Coming back here opened up…” She taps the side of her head. “I keep imagining accidents for all of you.”

“Uh,” Richie says. Seriously, how do you respond to that? “Cool?”

Bev gives him a look. Probably not like that, then.

“I mean, you really pulled the short straw on that one,” Richie tries. “Don’t think I don’t know that. But you’re gonna do all right. Name the dog Dipshit, after me, okay?”

“Dipshit Marsh-Hanscom.” Bev tips her head to the side, considering it. “Somehow, I don’t think so.”

“Worth a try.” Richie chews his lip for a moment, then says, “Hey, about yesterday.”

“Mm?”

“The phone call thing, with Eddie’s wife, I didn’t…” Bev had looked so freaked out— stricken, almost. He doesn’t want to lose her too. “I wasn’t gonna… I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You did, though,” says Bev, hand curling in the blanket. “Nothing bad, I know, but you can’t just…”

Richie waits. Whatever names she wants to call him, he deserves.

Gently, she rubs her left ring finger. “Eddie and I made a lot of the same mistakes, I think. Tom was— Tom was bad. And I left, but… getting out is hard. So you can’t pull that shit again, okay?”

Well, fuck.

“Jesus, Bev,” Richie croaks. That’s it? His friends are too goddamn forgiving. “Yeah, I won’t. I know.”

Bev hums, letting go of her hand to brush her fingers over the coverlet again. “Richie,” she says, “I don’t know what you saw, exactly, but—” She huffs out a breath. Bev’s always been so cool, so tough, and it’s kind of an honor to see her let down her guard. Richie wishes this was happening under any other circumstances. “I mean, I could guess, but that might be worse. But if you can tell anyone...”

Richie swallows. “Bev.”

“It doesn’t play the long game, Richie.” Bev pulls at a thread, starting to unravel the shitty comforter. “It never has. If It wanted to do that…” She sighs. “The deadlights are a truth. I think. As best as I can tell. The visions aren’t all true, but it can happen. Like Stan.”

Right. Stan. Bev walked around with that rattling in her brain for twenty-seven years, she just didn’t know it was there. “But they’re back.”

“They are,” Bev allows. “But honestly, Richie, if It was possessing Eddie, I think he would have done something by now. It’s not patient enough to do that to you.”

“I spent a year and a half in the deadlights,” Richie says, and he’s surprised to find his throat is hoarse. It’s easy and hard to admit.

Bev looks at him, and keeps tugging at the thread.

“Not, like, continuous,” Richie says quickly. “It went in bits and pieces, just the important stuff. The good stuff. We got out. Even him, everyone but Stan. I got my career back on track, he got a divorce, he— he moved in.”

The only sign of surprise is the slightest twitch of Bev’s lips. Richie can’t tell what that means. Ben knew, but that was Ben, who’s basically a cupid angel made flesh. He doesn’t count.

“He moved in, we visited you guys— Bill has a huge fucking house, by the way. Just so you know. I,” Richie says, and has to stop for a moment. “I looked at rings, Bev.”

“Oh,” says Bev. Her voice is soft. “Richie.” 

“Yeah, I— I asked, and he was _saying_ — he said it. And then I woke up.” He can remember it so clearly, the spark in Eddie’s eyes, his laugh as Richie fumbled the ring and dropped it into a glass of wine. _Oh my god, dude, that was terrible, fucking of course but how did you screw that up, yes, you idiot, of course. God, I love you. Of course._ And then, from far away but getting closer, _There he is, buddy. Hey, Richie, I think I got him, man!_

“Oh, god.”

“And, like.” Richie tries to think of how to explain. “It was a— it was a greatest-hits montage, you know? Only the big stuff, the milestones. But it felt real when I was in it, Bev. Really real.”

“It always feels real,” Bev says. “But it’s not. It could be, it could happen, but this is what’s real, right now.”

“I know, but.” Richie puts his face in his hands.

“Yeah.” Bev puts a hand on his shoulder, running it gently down the length of his arm. “I know.”

* * *

Eddie showers in Bill’s room. He’d thought he was okay about his bathroom, after he’d washed away the blood and taken down the shower curtain, but the scar on his face is aching and Eddie can hardly step into his room to grab his suitcases before his breath starts to tighten.

The shower helps relieve the visceral sense of having been vomited on, which is good, because he really doesn’t want to start getting used to that sensation. But even so, Eddie can’t shake the image of Richie crying, the sound of his voice. _You’re not real._ Half begging to be put out of his misery.

Most of the time, Eddie feels a mixture of fear and mild annoyance. It’s a useful combination, blood pressure concerns aside: fear keeps him alert, irritation keeps him active. Right now, though, he’s pretty sure he’s not scared or irritated. He’s terrified, and furious.

The day had been going well, especially compared to the past week. The past decade, really, maybe more. He’d gotten up and gone for a run for the first time since… god, since he’d finished his MBA, probably. Fourteen years ago he’d gone back to work, met a girl at an office party, and after a week his asthma symptoms had come back. Myra had been much more careful with him after she’d had to come pick him up on the Central Park running track, wheezy and lightheaded.

The run, and then the bank… Eddie had been confident he’d been making the right choice, even though he wasn’t sure what that choice was. He needed to leave. Everything else, he would take care of when it came up.

And then he’d gone back to the Townhouse, and everything had gone to hell.

It isn’t fair. 

That’s the most childish reaction he could have, he knows, this sense of indignation burning as he scrubs sweat and vomit off of himself. But it _isn’t._ They killed It. It doesn’t get to live on in him, or in Stan. It doesn’t get to gaslight them about Patty, who’d offered to call a doctor and apologized for coming. It doesn’t get to play mind games with Richie.

And yet. They don’t know what brought them back. Eddie is sure he isn’t It. There’s no inherent sense of unease, the way there was on their return to Derry, the way the summer of 1989 was overcast with fear. Derry has never been a good place to live, but the sense of _wrong_ that goes hand in hand with the clown is gone.

Which means something else pulled Eddie out of the wreckage of Neibolt and set him back on his feet. Something found Stan dead and sent him back to bed, to wake up next to his wife. What could reach as far as death and Atlanta?

The hot water runs out abruptly. Eddie jumps and grabs for the handle, twisting hard. He’s been daydreaming way too long.

Downstairs, Mike and Ben have started doing research. It’s almost like old times, the mess of paper spread across the bar and onto the floor. Eddie’s pretty sure they raided Mike’s apartment, because half of it is notes on disappearances and half of it is local history and folklore and all of it was produced a little too quickly to be random.

Bill is sitting at the table with Patty, chatting quietly. Talking her down. It’s good, probably, that it’s Bill, because though there are members of the Losers who are softer, better equipped to deal with shock, there’s still no one else who could lead someone into this darkness and then out the other side with such rock-solid surety. Patty’s scared, but she’s in good hands.

Eddie takes a seat at the end of the bar, turning over a piece of paper in his hands. It’s a topographic map of Derry, out to the quarry and including the Barrens.

“Stan went for a walk,” Ben says, looking up at him. He tries for a smile. Eddie appreciates the sentiment. “To cool down. Bev and Richie are still upstairs.”

“Right,” Eddie mutters. “Anything I can do?”

Mike nods and slides a folder and a pad of sticky notes down the bar. “Anything that looks important, flag it. We’re looking for unexplained events that don’t line up with the recurrence pattern.”

It’s slow going. Eddie is good at math, not history, and the documents alternate between painfully boring and just barely unusual, though not quite enough to call the others’ attention over. There are disappearances, because it’s Derry. There aren’t many reappearances. People get lost, they don’t get found, and it all fits into the twenty-seven year framework and means nothing.

Gradually, Eddie finds himself slumping over his papers. He can’t bring himself to care, even though he knows he should. None of it fits. None of it helps. He’s still angry, still scared, but he’s starting to wear out. He’s so fucking tired.

It hardly registers when Ben slides the folder out from under him. Mike murmurs something, his voice a low rumble, and then Eddie’s eyes slip shut and he is falling.

He can hardly see, it’s much too dark, but his stomach swoops with vertigo and he panics, throwing his arms out to catch himself. Then he remembers, thirteen years old and the sickening _crack_ of a bone twice broken, and curls in on himself, retreating in like a—

Like a turtle into its shell.

 _Hello, little one_ , says the universe, and Eddie blinks and the darkness is gone, replaced by the light of pinprick stars. He’s falling for another moment. Then he hits the surface of the galaxy with a splash, and suddenly he’s underwater in a sea of starlight, beams rippling and playing on his skin like the sun through the surface of the quarry.

“You,” says Eddie, staring at an eye that’s larger than his car and made up primarily of tiny supernovas, because he can’t think of anything else to say.

The turtle — because it is a turtle, if Eddie leans way back he can see the way the patterns of stars make up the surface of its shell — nods.

“You talked to me last night. All of us,” Eddie says, then realizes they never asked if— “Wait, did you talk to Stan?”

The turtle nods.

“What did you say?”

_Ask him yourself._

Eddie bobs in space for a moment, trying to think. He’s not usually lost for words, but this is kind of beyond him. “Who are you?”

The turtle considers this for a moment, then shrugs what Eddie realizes suddenly are not the paths of comets, but its fins. They go all the way out to the horizon, and beyond. Nothing should be so large, and yet Eddie gets the sense that his question has been answered.

“Did you— do you know about It?”

 _The Eater of Worlds is gone_ , says the turtle, and the words echo out. _I thank you for that._

Eddie swallows. “I didn’t really, uh. I was sort of— I wasn’t there for that part, actually.”

 _I know where you were. I know who you are. I know what you did._ And suddenly, on someone else’s authority, Eddie is growing to the size of the galaxy and beyond, until the turtle is no bigger than he is. Eddie’s skin creeps. It’s all wrong.

“Put it back,” Eddie says. The turtle shrugs, and Eddie is floating next to its massive eye again.

It takes a moment for Eddie to work up the nerve to ask. “Did you save us? Me and Stan?”

_I owed you a debt. Life conquers death, and the universe sees. You have my thanks, you brave and tragic children._

Eddie’s jaw drops. 

“Are you _fucking_ kidding me?!” he snaps, and once again everything shifts around him. He isn’t growing this time, though — the universe is shrinking, including the turtle. “Are you _joking?!_ You sent us to fight a murderous spiderclown named the Eater of Worlds, because you were— what, were you busy? People died! So many goddamn people died, and you had to wait for a group of children to take care of it? We have your _thanks?!_ Fuck you!” Rage blots out fear, the shaky uncertainty of the massive cosmos displaced by the memory of Stan’s wrists, Georgie’s little raincoat, Bev and Richie’s milk-white eyes. The turtle is tiny at his feet. “You’re just as bad as every fucking adult in Derry, we were _kids!_ We were just kids! How could you?!”

The turtle looks up at him, and Eddie can see it hesitate. _I am so sorry. I cannot feel fear._

“Bullshit!” Eddie shouts. The sound echoes into the void. “Everyone’s afraid of something, you do not get to tell _me_ that it’s possible to not feel fear—“

 _I do not_ , the turtle says. _I cannot. I cannot feel fear, and so I cannot be brave, and so I could not fight the Eater of Worlds. I can feel sorry, and I do._

“Not good enough,” Eddie says. “Nowhere fucking near good enough.”

 _I know_. The turtle looks… almost ashamed, as much as turtles can, and the universe slowly starts to reset itself to the proper scale, where Eddie looks up at the turtle instead of the other way around. _You were touched by the Eater of Worlds, brave when no one else was, dead when you should not be, and so I tried to help. I am sorry._

“And Richie?” Eddie folds his arms over his chest. “And Bev? The deadlights?”

 _Possibilities,_ the turtle says. _Truer than anything else It showed you. Not always true, and not always false._ It pauses again, and then says, _The lights are Its domain, but I did intervene, such as I could. Made sure it was relevant. A warning and a gift. I..._ meant _to help._

“Nice try,” Eddie says, “but you can go fuck yourself.” The turtle is back to full, incomprehensible size now, and Eddie can see himself reflected in its pupil like a mirror.

 _You have a second chance. It is all I can give. More might break you; less would not be enough._ The turtle closes its eyes for a long second. _The Eater of Worlds will not trouble the seers again. You and Stanley, those halfway lost, walking once more, may see me. I will try not to push._

“What does _that_ mean,” Eddie snaps. He raises a hand, gearing up to start swearing again, and then—

He slips sideways, falls off the bar stool and hits the floor.

Ben and Mike are on him in an instant, checking he’s all right, and the concern is simultaneously touching and a little bit too familiar in a way that sets Eddie on edge. It’s not personal, he just… coming back to Derry, remembering Derry, _dying_ in Derry, is starting to lower his tolerance for being fussed over. He’s awake, though, and once his head stops throbbing and he’s had Mike check his pupils for signs of a concussion, he explains his dream.

Halfway through, they stop him so they can call a full, semi-official meeting of the Losers Club and he doesn’t have to do this more than once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: the aftermath of a panic attack, deadlights-induced distrust of reality
> 
> come join me on tumblr at [seven-syntheseas](https://seven-syntheseas.tumblr.com)!


	6. everybody here has seams and scars

“So,” Stan says when Eddie’s finished. He crosses his arms over his chest. “It was the turtle.”

“Yeah, the turtle.” Eddie chews his uninjured cheek for a moment. “So we’re really back, It’s really dead, there’s a giant universe turtle haunting our dreams, and— yeah, I think that’s everything, unless anyone else has had any sudden revelations.” He looks around, but no one seems like they’re going to volunteer any information.

Mike heaves out a sigh. “I can look up turtles, there might be some local folklore. What’s our— do we have a next move?”

Almost in unison, they all look to Bill. Bill hesitates.

“I mean,” he says, and pauses. His mouth trembles. After a moment, the quiver passes and he continues, “it doesn’t sound like there’s anything we can… do. It’s not— it’s not like It, it doesn’t live under N-neibolt. We can’t fight the universe.”

“And— I mean, should we?” Ben bites his lip, looking at Eddie and Stan. “Is that… do we need to? Wouldn’t that be risky?”

“I cursed it out to its face,” Eddie says. “I don’t know if we’re supposed to fight it, but—” Belatedly, his words sink in, as does the realization of what happened. His heart catches in his throat. “Oh, my god, I cursed it out to its face. I told the universe to go fuck itself. Shit, shit, shit!” 

His breath tightens, and he can feel his heart rate speed up. He doesn’t have his inhaler. He shouldn’t need his inhaler, but he doesn’t have it, and even being able to put a hand on the cool plastic would help, he knows, he needs his inhaler, even if he doesn’t need it he _needs_ it, he’s going to drown here—

Drown.

Drown?

The maze flashes in Eddie’s mind, lost and alone in the dark with water pressing in on all sides, incapable of breath or movement until he took a second, and found himself sprinting for the first time in years.

That’s it. That’s all it is, he just needs to take a moment. Get ready to run.

Eddie closes his eyes. Remembers the water like wind, racing through his hair as he tore his way through the maze. His breathing smoothes out.

“Eds?” a voice says, cautious.

Eddie opens his eyes to Richie, who’s been sitting on the end of the couch, huddled up with a blanket around his shoulders and a bottle of water between his knees. He and Bev had come downstairs with bloodshot eyes, tearstained and shaky but hesitantly smiling, and when Eddie had asked him if he was okay, he’d elbowed Eddie and said, “I knew I looked like shit, but I didn’t realize it was that bad.” Eddie had pushed him, and for a moment things had felt easy.

“I’m good,” Eddie says once his heart rate is back under control. “I’m good, I’m fine. I, uh— everyone else had those dreams, right?”

The others nod. Richie makes studious eye contact with his water bottle.

“I don’t think…” Eddie trails off, pondering. Then he realizes he’s left that one wide open, and before Richie can jump on that with a _No, really?_ , he keeps going. “I mean, if it was going to kill me again, or un-revive me or whatever— I don’t think it’s gonna do that. I mean, I basically dared it to do its worst with that, and it mostly didn’t, it just said I would see it again and we didn’t have to worry about the clown anymore, so— I think it’s good. Or benevolent, anyway. It wants to help, even if it’s kind of shitty at it.”

“So the dreams were meant to help,” Ben says. He looks down at his hands, then back up. “That tracks.”

Richie lets out a tiny laugh.

Eddie looks at him.

“Just, uh,” Richie says. “Mine was— I mean, I get it, Master Oogway wanted to teach me a lesson, but I still— it was freaky, all right?”

“Yeah?” Stan tips his head, measured and casual, but Eddie can tell he’s interested. Worried, maybe. Eddie remembers with a start that Richie has known Stan since kindergarten, and Stan has probably always been the keeper of Richie’s secrets. “Anything in particular?”

Richie opens his mouth for a moment, then closes it. He takes the corner of his blanket between his fingers, twisting it back and forth.

They all stare.

“What?” Richie says. “Can’t a Trashmouth have a little moment of quiet?”

“You don’t have to tell us, Richie,” Bev says. She takes a deep breath, and her hand slips into Ben’s. “Mine was… there was a little dollhouse, and all of you were walking around inside. And I had to… I had to babyproof it, I guess.” Her mouth twists in a sort of half-smile. “It sounds ridiculous out loud. But I was scared that if I wasn’t careful, if I didn’t keep track of the pills and the knives and the ropes and the matches and— and the toaster, like you were going to drop it in the bath, you might…”

Ben squeezes her hand.

“And then I got so tired of stripping the house down, taking out all the furniture, and I started… molding them, I guess? Everything was made out of a sort of clay, and I built new furniture. And I got distracted, I let you wander, but… it was fine. And bit by bit, I built a little clay turtle, and it looked up at me and said, _Lay down your arms._ ” Bev looks at them all for a reaction, then shrugs.

“It said that to me, too,” says Mike. He has a folder of notes closed in his hands. Probably not notes about galactic dream-invading turtles, but it’s possible. “I was in a— a security room, watching you all on the cameras—“

“Okay, super creepy, Mikey,” Richie says, taking a long drink from his water bottle. Mike rolls his eyes, smiling. Something inside Eddie twinges, but at least he’s talking.

“When you went offscreen, I couldn’t find you anymore, and then... I realized the room was a tank, like a fishtank, just as it started to fill up with water, and I had the keys but the door was locked from the outside. But I heard— you were all outside, so I called to you and swam down and pushed the keys under the door, and… you all unlocked it.” Mike pauses. “Bev’s right, it sounds sillier out loud. But the water drained out, and when I looked back, the turtle was the only thing on the cameras. And it talked to me. The same thing. _Lay down your arms._ ”

“ _It’s okay to ask,_ ” Ben says, hand squeezing Bev’s. “That’s what I heard. I was in…” He squints at Eddie. “I think it was Times Square?”

Eddie winces sympathetically. Times Square is second only to Derry for hell on Earth, in his book.

“And I was lost. And it was— it was really empty, I would turn a corner and see someone slip down the next street, which is…”

“Not Times Square,” Eddie fills in, unsettled. An empty Times Square is almost impossible for him to picture. The image in his mind is eerie.

Ben shakes his head in agreement. “I don’t know how long I wandered around, but it felt like years. Eventually I noticed that the buildings were all pressing in on me. The street was getting smaller, or I was getting— it was claustrophobic. And I started chasing the shadows of the people, trying to catch up with them and get directions so I could leave, but they were too fast, until I yelled for them to stop and wait, and then… one of them stopped, and turned around, and it was the turtle. And it said that. _It’s okay to ask._ ” Ben works his jaw for a moment, his eyes downcast and his shoulders tense.

“I feel like there’s some symbolism there, but I have no idea what,” Richie says, eyes on his knees, his voice hoarse. “Let me know if you figure it out, Haystack.”

Ben looks up at that and smiles, almost laughs. Eddie feels a rush of fondness for them both. “I’ll keep you posted, Richie.”

“ _You can withstand this,”_ Stan says. He closes his eyes. “That’s what it said to me.”

Eddie looks at him. They all do. Maybe he senses their eyes on him, because he shakes his head. “The rest of it isn’t— I mean, it was the painting. Her mouth, _Its_ mouth was around my face, and her throat was a door. I could see you all inside, beckoning me. But it was… wrong. You were all off, somehow. And I was so tired, and scared, I wanted to shrug it off and just accept it and go in. Tell myself it was the smart choice. That the thing that was wrong was me, that I just wasn’t...”

“Stan,” Mike says, and his voice is shaky. Fuck. Eddie didn’t even stop to wonder what Mike was feeling. “You know I’m so—”

“Yeah.” Stan’s lips twitch, and he looks up at Mike with that inscrutable half-smile. “I know, Mike. But I’m— well, I’m not fine. But It’s dead, and I’m not. I pushed It off and kicked It in the stomach, and the turtle told me I was strong enough.”

“It said sorry,” Eddie blurts out. “To you. Both of us. I think, uh, I think it feels responsible.”

“That’s nice of it,” Stan says drily, rubbing his wrist. “I’ll be sure to remember that. Bill?”

Bill looks like he wants to say something, but finally he settles on, “We were walking through the caves in the dark. A h-human chain, and I was at the f-front. And you all wanted to go back, and I needed to keep going. But you were all… fading. I was lo—” He stops short and has to try again. It takes another two attempts before he manages to get out, “I was losing you. But turning around _hurt._ I was leaving p-pieces behind. No matter which way I went, something got lost, and going deeper into the caves hurt less.” Bill shakes his head, and Eddie tries to smile at him. “I did turn around. In the end. And it— you all were safe, but it hurt so much I thought I was going to die. I was leaving behind… something important. Something old.”

“Did it say anything to you?” Mike puts a hand on Bill’s forearm.

“ _You can withstand this,_ ” Bill says. “Like Stan.”

Stan looks at him, his eyes crinkling in that dry half-smile. “Us against the world, then?”

“Of course,” Bill says. “Always.”

It’s quiet for long enough that Eddie starts to get antsy. Normally any silence longer than a few seconds is broken by Richie, but Richie is curled up in his blanket and still resolutely not looking at anyone.

Eddie knows he doesn’t have to share, and there is a part of him that thinks maybe he shouldn’t, if only so Richie’s got some solidarity. But, on the other hand, he also scared the shit out of his friends by disappearing this morning, and he’s about eighty-five percent sure that it contributed to Richie’s panic attack. The dream symbolism is excruciatingly clear to him, and maybe it’ll help explain.

“I was in a maze,” Eddie says, “underwater. And I got lost.”

“You can’t get lost,” says Stan offhandedly. Then he pauses, and his face goes through the quick confusion-recognition-rememberance cycle that’s becoming more familiar the longer they stay in Derry. “Wait, you can’t get lost?”

“No,” Eddie says, “but I was. I couldn’t— usually I just… set where I need to go and then go there, but I couldn’t. And the water was too heavy, I could barely move. I was just lost and cold and too weak to move, and it was so _frustrating_ , I just wanted to get to the center of the maze. And then something snapped, and I could run. I didn’t know where I was going, but I ran all the way to the center of the maze.” It sounds much less impressive than it had felt, running wild and free, but they’ll understand. “ _Have a little faith,_ it said.”

Richie looks up at him.

“What,” Eddie says.

“Nothing,” Richie says, his eyes big and his hand clamped tight around the corner of the blanket.

“Does this count as my first group therapy session?” Stan says. “Patty says I should go to therapy. I feel like we all made a lot of progress today.”

“Fine, fucking whatever, I’ll tell you about my stupid dream.” Richie stands, blanket sliding off his lap. Eddie stares. Richie is tall, even taller standing up, but he looks diminished, jittery and tired as he is. There’s something flinty in his eyes, like he’s chasing back the fear by looking for a fight. Eddie is momentarily overwhelmed by the urge to hug him.

Stan looks up at him, expression quizzical, and Richie fidgets. “But, uh, not here, okay? I gotta… there’s somewhere we have to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: the beginning of a panic attack, cryptic dreams that hit at Losers' fears and insecurities, fear that others will commit suicide


	7. all your doors are flung wide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: compulsory heterosexuality, working through trauma
> 
> I finished this fic a year ago on Thanksgiving. It's taken me this long to get my shit together and post it, so here you go.

Richie scuffs his foot against the ground. It was a stupid impulsive idea, bringing them all here, and now that they’ve arrived, he’s really tempted to back out. It wouldn’t be that hard to jump back in the car and speed away. He could drive all the way to Canada, probably, it wouldn’t take more than a day. Start a new life as a fucking mountie, fishing for salmon and riding moose and wrestling beavers or whatever it is Canadians do all day.

Absently, in the part of his brain that used to write, the one that’s probably atrophying from lack of use, he files away the idea. Riding, beavers— hell, they’re called the _mounted_ police. Lot of good material there.

“Richie?” Bill says.

Oh, god, that’s right. He’s still here.

At the kissing bridge.

“Uh, yeah,” Richie says. “Yeah, be right with you, Big Bill, I just…” He pushes his glasses up his face and huffs out a breath.

The others watch him, but no one comments. They all just wait quietly, respectfully. Richie wants to smash the silence with a baseball bat.

In this ambiguous season, this late-summer-early-fall, the bridge is really fucking gorgeous. The leaves are lush, it’s a clear sunny day, the river is running cheerfully and strong. It doesn’t look like the place where a man died less than two weeks ago. It looks like it did in the summer of ‘89, when Richie was awkward and gangly and scared, choking on truths he knew he could never say out loud.

Some things don’t change.

“So,” Richie says. “I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve called you here today.”

“Yeah, actually,” Stan says, one sardonic eyebrow raised. He’s probably guessed, honestly— and that makes three, doesn’t it? Ben and then Bev and now Stan, who’s sort of always known about the liking boys thing, although Richie never told him about the kissing bridge.

Thinking about it like that helps. Three down. Three down, and they’re still here. He’s halfway done.

Eddie is hovering at the back of the pack, closer to the car, as Richie makes his way over to the old wood of the bridge wall. He’s been doing that, flitting around, like he’s suppressing all his nervous energy in case Richie’s going to shatter again. It sucks ass.

“Okay.” Richie takes a deep breath. “Okay, so my dream was… I know what it was about, I was in this recording booth and every time I tried to read my set I couldn’t talk, because whenever I tried to lie I almost threw up, and my set is a load of bullshit. Because I’m a liar. And the turtle and I had a nice talk therapy session, and you were all there watching but I couldn’t see you, and at the end of it I knew you all loved me and the turtle told me the same thing as Eddie. _Have a little faith._ ” 

Eddie looks at him. Richie looks away, down to the river where the water is slowly wearing away the rocks. Maybe someday all of Derry will just be a pile of sand.

“Well, sort of the same, you obviously need to believe in yourself and I need to do trust falls with the universe or some shit, but whatever.” Richie rushes to get the words out, because the next bit is the important part and if he loses momentum he’ll never get it out. “So anyway. I’m gay. I like guys. I’m a huge fucking liar and also, I fucked your dads.”

The sound of the wind through the leaves is oppressively loud.

“Like, all of them. All your dads, simultaneously,” Richie says, starting to feel a creeping pinching sensation in his chest that feels like something Eddie might call an asthma attack. “Particularly Bev’s dad, though, because I have a thing about shitty parents? I guess Mrs. K was just the start of a lifelong passion for unbridled raging maniacs who should never have been trusted with children—“

“Thank you for trusting us, Richie,” Mike says, and Richie just about starts to cry.

“Hey,” says Bill, rushing over. “Hey, hey, hey. Come on, man. It’s okay, we’re here.” He opens his arms, and Richie buries himself in them. He kind of feels like he’s dying, maybe, because it would make sense: the weight off his chest means he’s suddenly so light he could float.

The others cluster around, a big awkward pile of emotionally stunted forty-somethings, united in deep-seated childhood trauma and unconditional love. Richie _is_ crying, he realizes. God, he’s such a fucking mess. Shouldn’t he be dehydrated, after the past few days?

The deadlights never showed him coming out. They’d skipped that step, jumped straight to the easy reassurance of _moving in_ and _visiting friends_. Which makes sense. Everything they showed him felt perfect. This is a good hurt, but it hurts all the same.

“We love you, Rich,” Bev says, and the others all agree.

“What the fuck, guys,” Richie mumbles into someone’s shoulder. “You’re all so damn emotional.”

“I can’t believe you made us drive all the way out here to tell us you fucked our dads,” Stan says. Then he snorts. “Actually, no, I can completely believe that.”

God, Richie’s missed Stan.

“You missed the part where he told Ben he looked like a Brazilian soccer player,” Mike says, and Richie can hear his smile.

“I said he looked like every Brazilian soccer player combined, and I stand by that,” Richie corrects. “And you don’t have to be gay to know that, you just have to have eyes.”

“Then how would you know?” Ben says, and Richie starts crying all over again. Fuck, he loves these jackasses so much.

A hand finds his arm, squeezing his bicep carefully. From under the pile of weirdly genuine affirmation, Richie can’t tell whose it is, but they carefully lay their other arm across his shoulders, a warm weight at his back. “It’s okay, Rich,” Eddie murmurs.

Something hot snakes its way through Richie’s chest, and he’s torn. If he doesn’t back off now and explain himself, he’s going to blubber all over his friends for the rest of his life. But if he stops blubbering all over his friends, he has to back off and explain himself, and that really might be the thing that makes him run away to live in the Canadian wilderness.

“Sorry I threw up on you, dude,” Richie manages. Because really, what the fuck else is he supposed to say?

Eddie laughs. Actually, legitimately laughs. Richie can feel his chest rise and fall against Richie’s shoulders, and that’s really how he knows he’s fucked.

Okay then.

All in.

“Guys,” Richie starts, a little sniffly, but he turns his face and accidentally muffles the word in what he thinks might be Stan’s shoulder. He twists his head free and repeats, “Guys, wait, I’m not done. Give me some space, all right?”

They back off, one at a time, but they don’t go far. That’s fair. Richie’s collapsed once today, and he’s still dangerously close to bawling.

“So, uh,” Richie says. “The bridge. The reason I’ve gathered you all here today.”

Eddie tilts his head. Richie swallows.

“So, I’ve, uh. I’ve known I was gay since— probably since I was like, eleven. A while.”

Stan nods. Richie wonders how long Stan’s known. His mouth is dry.

“But— okay. You all remember the worst summer of our lives?”

“How could we forget?” Ben’s grin is lopsided, and Richie is viscerally reminded of the pudgy, awkward, sweet kid who thought NKOTB was the best place to get his pickup lines.

“Leave the jokes to the professionals, Haystack,” Richie says. He’s kind of grateful, though. It’s weird to have them all listening attentively. In his line of work, a quiet audience is like the kiss of death. “Anyway, uh. After the first time we went to Neibolt, while we were all fighting—“

“I wasn’t fighting,” Eddie says. “I was in Bangor.”

“Holy shit, fine. While we were all fighting, except for Eddie, who was busy getting his entire forearm glued back together, I— some shit went down with Bowers at the arcade, and after a super fucked up encounter with the clown in the park, I came here.”

“Wait, so you d-did see the clown?”

“Not the point, Bill,” Richie says, steamrolling over whatever Bill wants to say next. “I came here, and I carved some stuff into the bridge. To own it, you know? Like, I didn’t think I was ever going to tell anyone, but Derry couldn’t pretend it wasn’t real. Even if nobody knew, I was going to make a mark. I guess. Teenage rebellion.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets, taking a deep breath. Deadlights Eddie was okay with this. But then, that was Deadlights Eddie.

Mike looks at the carvings on the wall, a thoughtful look on his face, and Richie can feel ice drop down his spine. How many times has Mike walked across this bridge in the past thirty years? How much did he notice? Did he ever guess?

But he doesn’t say anything, just smiles gently at Richie, so Richie keeps going. “I carved some initials. Me and the guy I had a cr—“ _Honesty, Richie._ “The guy I was in love with.”

Eddie studies his face carefully, and Richie can’t tell what he’s thinking. His mouth is thin but not frowning, and his eyes are big and dark and shiny— but they always look like that, always have, that’s not special.

Richie closes his eyes. He can’t watch Eddie watch him. Not right now. “It’s, uh, over there.” He points back behind him, where he knows it still is. He can remember carving it so clearly, full to bursting with spite and fear and love. “My handwriting’s shit, and it’s not any better with a knife, so if you can’t read it—“

“R plus E,” Eddie says clearly, and no one else says anything.

“Yup,” Richie says, keeping his eyes shut tight. “Yep, yup, that’s the one. You got it. First try. Hey, actually, super weird, I didn’t know you could read—“

“Richie,” Eddie says. His voice isn’t angry. It’s not snappish, or combative, or pouty, or grumpy, or any other of a thousand things Richie would know what to do with.

Richie falls silent.

After a moment, he opens one eye. Then the other.

Eddie’s eyes are watering.

“Oh, fuck,” Richie says, because whatever he was planning, Eddie crying was not a part of it.

“Shit, sorry, I—“ Eddie swipes at his eyes. “Uh, congratulations. On coming out, not— fuck, that sounded terrible. I’m going to… I’m gonna…”

“Eds?” Richie says carefully.

“Thank you?” Eddie tries, a little wobbly. He looks around wildly at the other Losers. “I need…”

Bev looks back at him for a long second, then seems to come to some sort of executive decision. “We’re going to head back now,” she announces. “Text us when you want to get picked up.”

What?

“It’s fine, we can walk,” Eddie says.

“We can what?” Richie says, because that seems like a lot to ask of him right now, and seriously, what?

Bev herds the others back to the car, and Eddie tosses Stan the keys. They take a moment as Stan adjusts his seat and the mirrors. Then they’re gone, and it’s just Richie and Eddie alone on the bridge.

* * *

Eddie starts walking, because he has to do something. Richie takes a step to follow, so Eddie quickly turns around to make it clear that he’s not going anywhere, just pacing.

“I’m kind of freaking out right now,” Richie says. “So you don’t have to, like, say anything meaningful. But you could say a reassuring nothing. Or something.”

“Shut up, Richie,” Eddie responds on autopilot.

Richie is silent for a moment. Then: “Is it weird that that actually worked?”

“Oh my god,” Eddie says, blinking rapidly. He doesn’t want to cry, but the past few days have been kind of wild and his breathing is shallowing out and the alternative is a useless inhaler that’s buried under a pile of clown-infested rubble.

“The crying thing is not doing wonders for my confidence right now,” Richie says, standing awkwardly. Eddie paces past him and spins back for another round. “I just want that on record.”

“I’m not crying, shut the fuck up,” Eddie says. It’s mostly true. “I’m freaking out, how are you not freaking out?”

“Okay, one, I am definitely freaking out, I’m just not—“ Richie gestures at Eddie “—whatever this is, and two, you’re always freaking out! Usually you don’t look like I killed your fucking dog in front of you!”

“That’s not what this— holy shit, Richie!” Eddie whips around to face him, something buzzing under his skin. Richie snaps to attention. “I’ve been— why didn’t you fucking say anything?”

“Uh, I just did.” Richie won’t make eye contact. “Obviously.”

“No, like— god, back when we were kids, you could have said—“

“Oh, yeah, sure, and get my ass kicked into next week? Besides, you didn’t have it any fucking better, you were like two feet tall in pink short shorts and you sounded like a mouse on helium. We both would have fucking died, come on.” Richie bites his lip. “Besides, I didn’t know if you were, like. You know. Come on. You married a woman, dude.”

“Yeah, well, I’m divorcing her now, okay? Only tangentially because of this, by the way, it’s mostly because of Ben.” Eddie runs his hands through his hair, pacing to the edge of the bridge where the water rushes below. There’s too much in him right now. He feels like his brain’s going to overflow.

“Oh, good, Ben,” Richie says. “Glad to know Ben’s the standard that’s been set. I’m just totally screwed, huh?”

“No, I—“ Okay. Eddie phrased that wrong. He pauses, taking a breath. How to put it? “You were always— you were you. You’ve always been you, I saw Ben and I figured out it wasn’t just you.”

“ _What_?”

“I mean…” Eddie turns back to Richie, who’s just standing there with his face screwed up in confused indignation. He tries to think. “Okay, I’m— listen, I’m serious about this, I’m about to say a bunch of shit about me and Myra, and you’re not allowed to make any jokes.”

“Why don’t you just tell me to walk into traffic, Eddie?” Richie says, his expression softening a little. “Fine, whatever, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

“Okay.” _R + E._ It’s been literally written on the wall since Eddie was thirteen, and he never noticed. “Okay, so— there was a while where I thought there was something wrong with me.”

Richie starts to speak. Eddie raises an eyebrow, and he shuts his mouth with a snap.

“Like, with Bev— we would go to the quarry, and I would look at her, and she was pretty. And then I would go jump in the water and wrestle with you guys instead of thinking about it. And I— in college? I was in this frat— don’t,” Eddie says, because Richie looks like he has a lot he wants to say to that. “Don’t, they were okay guys, I swear, I was not about to _Animal House_ my college experience. Fraternities are very good for networking, okay?”

Richie looks like he’s trying not to laugh.

“Shut up, whatever.” Where was he? “Anyway, the guys tried to set me up, or we’d go on double dates, and— I don’t know, nobody clicked. No one felt familiar enough for that.” 

It had been a strange, comfortable sort of loneliness, an unasked question lurking unaddressed as Eddie’s friends had had dates, and then girlfriends, and then fiancees, while Eddie had had internships and freelance work and a CFA license to study for. He had set a course for himself, and he knew how to get there without thinking too hard about other paths. _Why doesn’t Eddie date? He’s busy._

“I, uh.” He swallows. They’re coming up on the part Richie needs to know. It’s also the part Eddie least wants to tell him. “So I didn’t date— well, one girl. In junior year. She thought one of the guys put me up to it as a joke, because I was… cold.”

“Eds,” Richie says softly.

“And then,” Eddie rushes on, “I had my program with the firm. You do two years getting experience and then they pay for your MBA, and then you go back, and when I went back I met Myra. And I thought— this is familiar. I know how this works.”

“Okay,” Richie says carefully. “I know I’m not supposed to joke, but there’s a lot of material in there that you’re just laying right out for me.”

“I know that, Richie, why the fuck do you think I told you not to talk?” Eddie snaps.

“Just saying!” Richie holds up his hands. “Also, Jesus, this is a long story. I’m really curious to hear how this all ends with Ben inspiring you to quit being a literal motherfucker.”

“Are you fucking serious right now?” Eddie says, though he’s only maybe 60% actually annoyed. Richie looks way more comfortable now, taking potshots at Eddie’s marriage, than he did two minutes ago when they were talking about real feelings.

“My bad, it slipped out,” Richie says. “Won’t happen again. I’ve got my shit locked up tighter than your mom’s—“

Eddie shoots him a look.

“Uh, carry on.” Richie stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets.

“So I was bad at dating, and I was bad at being married— not one fucking word, Richie,” Eddie says, pointing at him. Richie smirks, but it looks forced somehow. Maybe it’s his eyes, which almost look sad. “Anyway, I just— when I saw you three walk into Jade of the Orient, I looked at Ben and suddenly knew why I couldn’t— what was wrong.”

“Doing wonders for my confidence, Eds,” Richie says. His voice shakes halfway through.

“Yeah, well. Suck it up.” Eddie swallows. “So I saw Ben and realized— men. And then I saw you, and knowing _men_ meant I suddenly understood…” He and Richie don’t talk feelings, not really. But today has broken that barrier, so what’s a little more? “You, uh, you said that carving was for the guy you liked when we were kids.”

Richie scuffs his foot against the ground. “Something like that, yeah.”

“And I’m saying,” Eddie says, taking a deep breath, “that that’s cool. But if you’d told me earlier, I wouldn’t have freaked out on you, and I wouldn’t have had to wait until Jade of the Orient to figure out that I… yeah.”

After a moment, Richie blinks at him. “You’re killing me, man, I have no fucking clue what you’re trying to say.”

… oh, fuck it. The turtle did tell Eddie to trust his gut.

Eddie steps forward, takes Richie firmly by the shoulders, and kisses him.

It’s awkward, and honestly not very good, because Eddie’s lips are dry and Richie’s are a little too wet. The way Eddie’s arms are bent makes him feel a little bit like a praying mantis, and Richie’s basically unresponsive. It’s still the best kiss Eddie’s ever had in his life. It makes sense. It feels right. In fact, if the phrase weren’t so loaded, he’d say it feels like coming home.

Richie flails a little, and Eddie lets go of him, stepping away. “Sorry, I just— trying the new thing, remember? Going with what feels—”

“Yuh-huh,” says Richie, eyes huge. “Yeah. Right. Yeah.”

“... you okay?” Eddie says, because Richie kind of looks like Eddie punched him in the face. With his fist, not his mouth. It’s not the most comforting thing to see.

“Mmmuh-yep,” Richie says. His knees buckle and he drops to the ground, curling in on himself. “I’m, uh, compartmentalizing really hard right now.”

… right. Great. Cool. Eddie’s stomach drops. “Yeah. Right, of course. Shit. Sorry, man, I didn’t— I didn’t explain it super well, but yeah, that. If that makes sense. But we don’t have to talk about it again. Ever.”

“No, shut up, I’m,” says Richie, gesturing wildly at the air. “I’m just, uh, just, you know, this is like— hey, you remember two hours ago when you told me you were getting divorced and then I threw up on you?”

Oh, _shit_. Eddie takes an instinctive step back, and then, mentally cursing himself, another step forward. Richie needs him. “Fuck, man, I think I have some antiemetics back at the hotel. Are you allergic to salicylates?”

“Oh, that helped, yeah, just keep saying words I don’t know.” Richie grunts, tucking his head on his knees. “I just, uh— basically. The deadlights showed me a lot of shit. Good shit. About us. So when there’s good shit now, you know, it’s, uh. It doesn’t seem… it’s hard to believe.”

What Eddie should take away from that, he knows, is that Richie is in a fragile place and he needs to be careful with him. What he actually takes away from it… “That was good?”

Richie lets out a snort. “Yeah, dude, it sure fucking was, I just— give me a minute or two to get my head on straight, okay?” He pinches the bridge of his nose behind his glasses. Eddie can see a single teartrack on his cheek. “Damn, I’ve been dreaming about that for thirty fucking years and the first thing I do is collapse. Real sexy.”

Eddie hesitates for a moment, then squats down next to him. The ground isn’t something he really wants to touch, now or ever, but… Richie. He’ll get through it. “If you think about it, you’re setting a pretty low bar here. Next time can’t really go worse.”

“Now why the fuck would you go and jinx me like that?” Richie grouses, but he’s smiling a watery smile. “... next time, huh?”

“I mean, I need to call a divorce lawyer first,” Eddie says, because his brain might be a mess but he knows what’s on the to-do list. The concrete of the road bites into his palms. His blood is pumping. More than a direction, he has something to look forward to. “But yeah. Next time. If you want.”

“Oh, you better believe I fucking want,” Richie says. Tentatively, he reaches out, putting his hand on top of Eddie’s. “Let’s do this, huh?”


End file.
